Dollhouse
by NostalgicForNever
Summary: This is a story in which the agents get stranded on a trip back from a case that didn't work out - and by stranded, I mean stranded.
1. Chapter 1

Dollhouse

Chapter 1

"Mulder, slow down, I can't catch up here." Scully wrestled with the map, angling her flashlight.

"I'm just trying to get a little breeze going." He rubbed the back of his neck. "It's so damn humid—I feel like I'm in a pickle jar."

He rolled his window further down, and Scully winced as the rush of air flapped the corner of the map almost smacking her on the face. Around them, the night was heavy, the moon blocked by thick clouds groaning to release their weight. The little spray that came down an hour back only served to congeal the trapped moisture in the air, and now wisps of fog rushed at the agents, like white fingers reaching out of the darkness and enveloping the car. It had been a good quarter of an hour since they'd passed a crossroads where a stop sign flashed at them. Now, it was blackness to either side—cornfields undefined in the night, promising nothing, not even the light of a farmhouse window.

"Mulder, just pull over," Scully urged. "I don't think this is the way to the interstate. I have no idea what way this is."

He obliged, perhaps just for the chance to get out of the car which was quickly becoming impossible to breathe in or see out of with the moisture collecting on the inside of the windshield, and the air-conditioning broken, despite what the clerk at the rental place assured them. He edged as far to the left of the road as he could without running into the cornstalks, and turned on the hazard lights for good measure. The cautionary gesture was reflexive—a good driver's habit—but it was doubtful that the agents would startle another vehicle: they hadn't seen another car in over an hour.

Mulder climbed out, stretched, and pulled off his already loosened tie. Scully got out, took off her suit jacket, and tossed it into the backseat alongside Mulder's. She spread the map along the damp hood and studied the dull gray lines in the spot of her flashlight.

"I think we got off-track here," she pointed, "At Beard and Calla. We should have turned left, like I said."

Mulder grunted and rubbed his forehead. His hair was limp, sticking to his skin. "Where are we now, then?"

Scully peered back at the road they had just charged down, and studied the map again. "Middle of nowhere, Ohio, Mulder. If we backtrack up to that last stop sign—"

"What's ahead?" He cut her off.

She bit her lip. "More of the same, Mulder. If we backtrack—"

"I don't feel like chasing more fog in this hell weather. How many cornfields can there be? If we keep going, we're bound to come across a main road."

"Mulder—"

"Scully, it's what—three in the morning? I've been driving all day. I just want to find a cheap motel."

She sighed. "If we backtrack," she said again, pointing to the map which was glued by the moisture to the hood and quickly growing damp enough to tear, "we can get to Struthers county in about an hour."

"An hour? Scully, what's ahead down this road?"

"Nothing!" She waved the flashlight around at the black fields, and brushed her own damp hair off her face. "Mulder, why do you always do this? If you're tired, I'll drive. We'll backtrack to Struthers and find a motel."

He glanced at her sideways and walked over to study the map. "Right there," he pointed when she gave in and shone the flashlight on their location. "Just ahead—Springfield Road. And it leads right to the interstate."

"Mulder," she bent over to double-check, "Mulder, that's at least an hour anyway."

"But an hour forward, not back, right?" He spit out a sunflower seed shell and climbed back behind the wheel.

Scully glanced around the fields again, and carefully preened the moist map off the hood.

"Fine," she said, as she slipped into the oven that the car had become, "if you want to be stubborn—fine." She tried to fold the map and realized immediately what a mistake that was. The cheap wet thing stuck together like paper mache.

"Would you please roll your window down," he groaned as they pulled further down the lifeless road.

The black tops of corn husks rushed past them on either side. The white fingers of the fog grew insistent, solid almost in their illusion of caressing the agents' car. The road had yet to show a light of anything apart from the vague definitions procured by their headlights. After another quarter of an hour, the country music on the radio flickered with static, and in another few minutes, the sound of Toby Keith's new hit album died out altogether.

Scully glanced at Mulder and plucked at the edge of her skirt. Her nylons were causing her near-maddening itchy discomfort in the soupy moisture. Mulder fixed his blood-shot eyes on the road ahead. The static on the radio grew harsher, catching sometimes another station—a late night sermon of some sorts by a bellowing self-proclaimed clergy man—and it was so diffused and prickled that it only created more feeling of frustration in the agents' company. Finally, Mulder reached over and shut the volume off. The silence that swallowed them reflected the black landscape rushing by and reminded that there were no lights still—not even from the stars that had been blocked by the agitated heavy sky.

After another ten miles, the car stalled.

It rumbled at first. Mulder clenched his teeth and leaned on the accelerator. The engine squealed, then it gagged, and then it coughed, jerking, and, like a hysterical employee that couldn't handle the stress any longer, it simply walked away from the situation. The agents rolled to a full stop in the middle of more of the same—nowhere, Ohio.

For a short second, neither made a sound.

Then—"Fuck!" Mulder flew out of the car.

Scully arched her neck back against the passenger's seat, letting the moisture and sweat rub off on the smooth, rental-car, supposedly-in-perfect-condition felt.

"That goddamn kid," Mulder cried outside. "I knew he was lying—I knew this piece of junk would fail out."

She rubbed her head and stepped out into the stretch of road that looked hauntingly no less different from the place they pulled over before.

"He thought you were taking it straight to Youngstown," she muttered.

"He figured that the government sends their checks a month after they're due."

"I doubt, Mulder, that he—"

"Where the hell are we?" he cried.

She flinched. The map was plastered to itself on the dashboard inside. "Every time, Mulder—why do you get like this when you drive?"

He winced and ran his palms down his face. "I'm exhausted, Scully. It's wet. All I wanted was to get out of here."

She ran her fingertip along the lifeless hood. "Mulder, I'm sorry the 'beast of Akron' didn't turn out to be an X-file, but you're acting crazy right now. Can't you see that?"

"No—no, I can't. All I see is this damn road—that's all I've seen for the past sixteen hours. All I see is this," he threw his arm at the darkness. "I'm so tired, Scully."

"Mulder, let's just camp it out in the car and—"

Her voice fell away in her throat. She was facing Mulder—facing his sweating, defeated expression—and then behind him, Scully saw a girl. It was a girl that had no business being out in the middle of countryside Ohio—less business than even the agents had. Their car had died, but the headlights had remain on.

The little girl walked toward them, down the opposite side of the road, and she looked like she walking home from school—a walk that was light and belonging to the day. She looked untouched by the heavy moisture and the darkness of the moonless night. She was wearing a pink dress, silk and edged with tiny ribbon bows, and her hair was dark and languid in its curls—completely untouched by the static of the moisture. She seemed so out of place, that for a moment Scully thought she was hallucinating. Until, the girl spoke.

"Did your car break?"

Mulder jumped and whipped about. He stared at the little girl, probably thinking he was hallucinating himself, and then Scully's logic kicked in.

"Yes, honey," she rushed. "We're trying to get to the main road. Do you live around here? Do your parents have a house out here?"

The girl smiled. She stepped up closer and studied the agents. Her little blue eyes dilated, growing darker.

"Oh, lovely!" She cried and clapped her hands.

The headlights went out and then darkness swallowed everything.

* * *

Scully woke to the taste of a dusty blanket against her lips. The ridges of embroidery scratched at her cheek. Piercing sunlight slashed underneath her eyelids like a razor blade. Somewhere, in the trained part of her mind, she realized that her gun was missing, but she couldn't put together the rest of her situation. She meant to stay still until she could gage her situation, but her throat was so dry and scratchy, she burst out coughing.

The next thing she saw in the gold wash over a purple and green blanket was a pair of big blue eyes. Then, a little dark-haired head shot up over the bed's edge.

"Morning, pretty,"

The little girl stood and flicked off a lock of Scully's hair.

"Mulder?" Scully coughed out.

"What?" The girl frowned. "Water? I have some right here." She stretched a glass dripping on the sides with beads of condensation—ice cold water.

Scully grabbed it and swallowed it in grateful gulps. "My partn—the man I was with—where is he?"

"The Gentleman?" The little girl beamed. "I put him in another room. He's still sleeping, I think. Do you want to have morning tea and sweets?"

Scully arched up and studied the room. It was not what she would have expected of a farmhouse bedroom. It was lavish: a poster bed and crown moldings. She was swallowed on either side by embroidered pillows, and there was an ornate oak dresser across from the bed. She winced against the light pouring into the window, and tried to find her voice with the water that had moistened her tongue.

"Sweetheart, are your parents around?"

The little girl brushed down her pink skirt. "No. They're out. You should have some breakfast, though. There are blueberry pancakes ready in the kitchen."

Scully swung her legs over the edge of the bed and noticed that, like her gun and holster, her pump heels were missing as well.

"Are they out to—church?" She asked, squinting in the gold light.

"Who?"

"Your parents."

"Sure."

"What room is my partner in?"

The girl shifted and fluttered her thick dark hair. "Just down the hall. He'll be right over. Won't you have tea and sweets with me first?"

The girl turned without another word, and disappeared behind the bedroom door that was too large and too ornate for a farm house.

Scully hesitated, rubbed her temples, glanced at the empty water glass and followed.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The hallway outside was draped in a dusty dim. After the brilliance of the sunlight in the bedroom, Scully felt like she had stepped into a closet. She blinked, adjusting, and then tried to make out any doorways—a room where Mulder would be.

"Come along," the little girl called ahead from the top of a stairwell.

Faint light barely edged the carpet of the top step, reflecting in a sliver off the girl's shiny black shoes. Dust bunnies circled in the dim glow, brushing up against the ribbons on the her skirt, but her face was thrust into shadow—a dark silhouette.

Scully glanced back down the hallway. "Which room is my partner in?"

"He's sleeping," the girl waved a hand. "Come. Let's have tea."

Her small voice rang like a bell, cheery and pretty. Scully relented and walked down the carpet floor toward the stairs. Her nylons brushed against the short thread with light static, and she took short careful breaths—the air was tight and laced with dust. The little girl waited until she was sure Scully was coming, and then she flipped back her mane of hair and skipped down the steps.

The stairwell twirled about a short landing, the oak banister curling, and the steps lowering into light. Pictures hung along the pale plaster wall. They were old photographs in frames, but most were illegible—scratched out with markers and crayons. Scully followed the girl down to a hardwood floor and into another hallway which opened up to a large dining room with tall ceilings. Again, Scully thought the interior oddly ornate for a farmhouse. The dining room was long with windows edging one side, exposing a stretch of green corn stalks. The table, however, was short, intimate, dressed in cream cloth and laden with tea accessories. When they walked in, a woman in a long gray dress was setting the last finishing touches on the spread. Her back was turned, showing only her thin neck and a tight chestnut braid wrapped along the back of her head. She didn't turn or make a sound. She merely flinched and rushed out of the doorway across the room.

"Excus—" Scully began, noticing the adult.

"That's Nina," the little girl cut her off. "She's just a maid. Don't mind her."

The woman had already disappeared.

Scully looked the little girl over again. In the bright sunlight, she looked especially childlike, but just as surreal as she had when she appeared out of the fog in the middle of the night. She threw her wide blue eyes up at Scully now and stretched a shy smile.

"Tea's getting cold. Won't you sit?"

Scully obliged, shifting a bit on the velvet plush cushion of the carved oak chair. She felt out of place, and unsettled. Her trained instincts urged her to demand the location of her gun, her partner, the car—and most of all: just her location. The problem was that it was difficult to act an agent in presence of a seven-year-old who was pouring hot tea into a tiny china cup. The tea smelled of lavender.

"It's my favorite," the girl said.

She had settled across from Scully with practiced grace and a familiar comfort with delicacy. She stretched the teacup on a thin saucer toward Scully and then busied over the breakfast layout, inspecting everything with a scrutinizing frown.

The spread was decadent. Blueberry pancakes sat as promised under a tall lid, the glass of which was steamed up by their heat. There were croissants and croissant sandwiches both hot and cold. Small sausage links browned on a skillet, and a tall carafe of pulped—could only be fresh-squeezed—orange juice showed off its condensation under the sparkle of the morning light. There was toast and six different jams in small jars with silver spoons dipped in. Soft, flaky buttermilk biscuits wafted a dizzying scent. Scully felt her throat and tongue moisten from the sight. Her last meal had been a gas station hotdog, quickly devoured while Mulder filled up the tank—over twelve hours ago.

"Urgh," the girl winced. "She never remembers that I like linden berry preserves."

Scully took a short sip of tea and glanced at the mass of food again. Her stomach was starting to groan.

"Oh, eat!" the girl cried. "Eat, eat. And here—" She grabbed a short clay jar. "You shouldn't drink lavender tea without honey. That's uncivilized." She giggled and ducked a spoonful of golden stickiness into Scully's cup.

Scully cleared her throat and tried out her best adult-speaking-to-a-child smile. "What's your name?"

"My name is Greta." The girl jumped out of her chair and curtsied. "What's yours?"

"Sc—Dana."

"Pleased to meet you Miss Dana." She slipped onto the chair again and nudged the sausage skillet toward Scully. Scully glanced at it, salivating, and then gave in and transferred a link onto a pristine plate, along with some biscuits and an egg sandwich.

"Are your parents going to feel alright about you taking in strangers, Greta?" she asked, chewing and soaking in the flavors. The food tasted like nothing she'd ever had—like it was the food a chef imagined when cooking.

The little girl brushed down her pink skirt. Her wide eyes focused on Scully's lips with pure fascination as she chewed. Greta herself only took a tiny sip of tea.

"Why, of course," she set her cup down, keeping her gaze on Scully's fork as she ate. "We are a warm family. It would have been awful to just leave you out there stranded."

"Where are they now?"

"Out," Greta waved a small hand. "Do you like the food?" Her big eyes were still zeroed in on Scully's lips and the fork transferring morsels back and forth.

"It's delicious," Scully nodded and set the fork down carefully. The big blue eyes unnerved her despite the grateful warmth that was now filling her stomach. "Where are we exactly—can you tell me, Greta?"

A small frown dipped between the girl's delicate dark eyebrows. "Where? Like the town?"

"Yes, yes. Which town?"

"Mahoning county." The girl threw a graceful arm at the windows near-pressing the cornstalks. "New Middletown Village."

Scully scratched back a lock of her hair trying to remember the map that was now probably baking on the dashboard into an unreadable paper plate. It worried her that she couldn't remember walking to or into a house after the headlights went out. Was she so tired that she simply blanked out during that part?

"And our car, Greta?"

"The one that broke?" The little girl ruffled her dark locks again, and took a second sip of tea. "It's out on the road. I can get Jimmy to fix it for you if you like."

"Oh? Where's—where's Jimmy?"

"Out back."

"Could I speak to him, sweetheart?" Scully leaned forward.

"Sure. I'll get him in a little bit. He's busy now." Greta straightened her pink skirt again, and a sharp glint caught her blue eyes under a curtain of unkempt young lashes. "Do you like your outfit?"

"Hm?" Scully pulled back. She was still in her nylons, her straight skirt, and the dress shirt that had collected enough perspiration and tossing to be a silk rag. It was a familiar situation.

"Well, I don't like it very much," the girl said. "You are so pretty. I have dresses you can wear—outfits, too."

"Oh, that's alright. I—"

"It wouldn't be any trouble." A harder tone trickled into the girl's cheery voice. "They're my mother's. She wouldn't mind a bit."

Scully looked the girl over again and glanced toward the door through which the woman setting tea had left. "I'd like to get the OK from your mother before borrowing anything."

Greta jumped out of her chair and giggled. "Oh, she wouldn't mind at all. Won't you come?"

"Greta, really, I—" Scully shifted. The sweetness of the tea started to take an odd, nauseating effect, congealing its residue under her tongue. "I need to speak to my partner, and then maybe to your Jimmy if he can fix the car. We're a bit lost—you understand that, don't you?"

The sunshine was blindingly gold, but a shadow still managed across Greta's little face. The girl stretched her smile wider, tensing her cheeks. "They're really pretty dresses. Won't you come?"

"Greta, I really—" Scully grabbed her head. A fast headache pounded at her temples.

"I have a mint-green dress—summer dress—almost see-through it's so light. It would go so well with your hair."

Scully cleared her throat again. The headache pounded at her temples like merciless drum. "Greta, I—I have to talk to my partner."

"He's sleeping." That time it wasn't a sweet tone. The girl's little bell voice rang like an order. "Won't you come?"

Scully grabbed her hair. She searched the table for a glass of water.

"You don't look well, Miss Dana." The little girl stepped closer. "Maybe you need to go back to bed."

"No, I'm just fine. I—"

* * *

Scully opened her eyes to darkness and the same dusty embroidery pressed to her cheek. She shot up and glanced about. The curtains were drawn. A sliver between the velvet cut the bedroom in half with a thin yellow line. It ran along one corner of the dresser across the bed.

She focused. Had she been dreaming? Her stomach was full and that sticky honey taste was still under her tongue. She glanced at the bedside dresser, but the glass of water was gone. Had she been drugged? She ran her memory through every bit of pharmacology she knew. Rohypnol? Coupled with Amitriptyline? Olanzapine? Nothing made sense—she couldn't have been drugged enough to collapse, and she remembered eating. And why would she be drugged? By a little girl no less.

The door creaked—soft as a breeze, but Scully rallied against it with pure panic. It fell shut and then there was nothing—no sound. Scully blinked against the darkness. She could feel someone in the room. Her instincts kicked into overdrive. She tensed, readying for anything and everything, and just at the last second, before he was on her, his familiar scent disarmed her.

"Mulder!" she gasped.

Her eyes had adjusted enough to see him—sweaty, wide-eyed. He ran his hands along her arms like he was checking something. Then he dipped them down to her hips.

"What are you doing?" she whispered.

"Your gun—" he croaked. "Where is your gun?" His voice came like sand, dehydrated, pleading.

"I don't know," she breathed. "What's going on?"

"I don't have mine either. We have to get out, Scully. Now."

"What's going on?"

"Have you seen them?"

"Who?"

The door slapped open. Against the dim hallway, Scully only saw a silhouette—a silhouette she recognized: the woman that had been serving the tea. Her face was undecipherable against the dim hallway light. She could have had her back turned again for all that could be seen.

"Oh, hello—" Scully rushed. Mulder's fingers on her arm tensed, clenching.

"Miss Greta," the woman called down the hallway.

The little girl emerged, walking slowly in the little light of the hallway, nose buried in a book. "Yes, Nina, what is it?"

"Your dolls." The woman pointed.

Greta peeled her eyes off the pages. "Oh. Miss Dana, you should be sleeping."

Mulder's hand clenched harder on Scully's arm.

"And your Gentleman!" the little girl peered in, noticing him. "What are you doing up and about? Put him back in the trunk, Nina."

Never—Scully had never felt that much panic in Mulder. And they had been through the ringer on all accounts. He let go, breathing fast. Only his fingertips brushed the skin of her arm. His eyes met hers. He was trying to say something—he was trying to push any and every dire experience they'd had into a manifestation of telecommunication.

The silhouette of the woman shifted. "I can't, Miss Greta."

"Urgh," the girl lifted her eyes off the book again. "You are useless, Nina. Fine. I'll do it."

In the short stretch of light of the hallway, Scully saw her lift a small hand, eyes still pinned on the open page of the book. The fingers snapped.

* * *

Scully opened her lids against the dusty embroidery again. The curtains were parted and a rush of sunlight bathed her, caking her dry tongue to the rest of her mouth.

Greta loomed into view, dark locks washing about a small large-eyed face. She smiled when she saw Scully focus and stretched out a glass of ice-cold water.

"I want to play today. Do you want to play?"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Scully thought fast.

Little Greta faced her with wide expectant eyes. The bedroom looked just the same—bright sunlight washing in, stirring up dust bunnies. Only, Scully wasn't confident that it was still the same morning. Had she blacked out for a minute? An hour? A whole day?

Greta was in the same pink dress. _Do you want to play?_ She'd said. The question hung between them now, and its tone wasn't light—it was thick like the dust-filled air.

More than anything, Scully wanted to rush out into the hallway and swing open every door until she found Mulder, but her instinct bid her to be still. Her logic had been defied, and she had ample experience with that feeling. It was during those moments that the very same logic kicked into overdrive—into a purely intuitive sense of self-preservation. What had become clear was that the little girl had a way of knocking her unconscious. The 'how?' didn't quite matter just then—there would be time to mull over the 'how?' The panic she'd felt in Mulder had been too real, and now, it was imperative that she move slow, gage the situation, and figure out the best course of action. It was imperative that she remain careful, logical.

Greta arched her delicate dark eyebrows.

"Sure," Scully nodded and took the proffered glass of water. She drew a short sip—just enough to wet her tongue and plead with her pounding headache. It didn't seem like the water was laced with anything, but her paranoia scoured every possibility down to the embroidered pillows. Some drugs entered the system through skin-contact alone. "Sure, I'd like to play," she said. "Do you want to play outside?"

The sweet smile that stretched across the little girl's lips faltered. "Outside? There's nothing out there. It's boring out there. Don't you want to go try on some outfits?"

Scully sat up and swung her legs over the beds edge. Greta's blue eyes widened, never moving from Scully's. _Hypnosis?_ The image of the little girl snapping her fingers flashed across her mind, but Scully pushed it away. She needed to stay present.

"I'd like that, sure," she said. "But I—I just need to get something out of the car first."

Greta pursed her lips.

"Plus," Scully hurried. "I think some fresh air would be good for a moment—don't you?"

"Fresh air?" Greta tongued the words, thought about it, and shrugged. "Very well, I guess."

"Great. I'll be right back."

"I'll come along."

Scully held back the urge to wriggle her shoulders. It wasn't a good time to dwell on the creepy feeling, but that didn't change the fact that it was there all the same. She glanced down at her feet as they brushed the carpet.

"Greta, what's happened to my shoes?"

"The blocky ones? I thought they were ugly, so I threw them out."

"Oh." She cleared her throat. "That's—that's ok."

"I have a thousand other pairs of shoes you might like."

"No, no, just—hold on." Scully turned around and inched up her skirt. She unclipped her stockings and slipped the nylons off. Barefoot was just fine. It was the countryside after all.

She turned back to see Greta studying her with curious eyes. "After you?" Scully offered.

They circled down the carpeted stairwell. The little girl led her away from the dining room and into a lavish foyer. Here, too, the space seemed so fancy, including velvet seating cushions and decorative carved paneling. The door to the outside was the first element of the house that Scully found appropriate for a farm, and completely out of place with the rest of the décor. It was a simple wood door, painted in cheap flaking green, with two stained and raggedy lace curtains over a cracked window. It was too short for the height of the ceiling—a regular sized door.

Greta swung it open and stepped out onto a creaky porch drenched in sunlight.

"Wow, the weather sure turned lovely," Scully said as she followed her, more too keep a light mood going than anything else.

"Has it?" The little girl frowned at the cotton ball clouds across the azure sky.

Scully scoured the landscape. Cornfields—lush green stalks swallowed the house on either side, rustling in the faint breeze, basking in the sun. The porch was cluttered with pots and wind chimes. The chimes let out a weak ting. The pots were filled with dried out plants long gone un-watered. Ahead, a short clearing condensed into a single road that curved between the stalks and away. A sharp rhythmic sound of wood splitting cut across the air, garish against the hesitant bell sound of the chimes.

Greta skipped down the few porch steps and ran up to the road. Scully followed, wincing at the rough prick of rocks under her bare feet. The ground was warm, the little sharp pebbles hot under the sun. Scully glanced back at source of the rhythmic clap and saw a man chopping wood at the side of the house. His back was turned, like the woman she saw serving tea. He swung an axe with a practiced motion against the short logs he set on a stump. He was a squat man with muscles that bulged under layers of fat—the kind of man that ate protein-laden meals and drank a few cool ones after work, blocking up the cholesterol in his veins. Wet, dusty perspiration soaked the back of his worn-out white undershirt.

"Excuse m—" Scully moved toward him.

The man flinched, dropped the axe, and walked away to the backside of the house without turning.

Little Greta rushed up and grabbed Scully's hand. "That's Jimmy. He's busy with chores. Come, let's go get whatever you needed from your car."

Scully stared after the man and then looked up to take in the house. It didn't look right. It looked like a farmhouse—a simple two-story construction dressed in chipped green siding with windows small and dusty. They weren't the same windows that she saw in the bedroom. The height of the building alone was too small for what she had seen inside. Greta tugged at her hand, and Scully bit her lip. Later—she would figure it out later.

The road scratched at her soles as she walked alongside the little girl, but Scully found it easy not to be bothered—almost comfortable. High heels were just as painful if not more. She glanced over and saw Greta staring at her feet.

"Baba used to do that," the girl said quietly, almost to herself.

"Do what?"

"Walk barefoot."

"Who's Baba?"

"My Baba—my great grandmother." Greta looked away at the cornstalks. She let go of Scully's hand and brushed back her dark curls that strayed on the breeze.

"Did she…"

"Pass? Yes. A long time ago. There's your car, Miss Dana."

Scully looked up to see their sorry rental baking in the sun on the side of the road. The passenger's door was still swung open. She rushed over and checked the map she'd left on the dashboard—useless. The lines had cooked away in the moisture and heat—the cheap thing was reduced to a gray shred of nothing. Her jacket was still alongside Mulder's on the backseat. She searched the pockets hoping—for something. Their badges were in their jackets, but nothing else. She moved to take them and stopped. If a tow-truck came across this road and FBI badges were found in the car—the agents would be found. She opened them and laid them flat on the driver's seat. The government emblems glinted in the sunlight. Scully glanced up to see Greta watching her from outside the window. The girl stretched a small smile.

Scully swung the glove compartment open, but found nothing apart from the rental agreement and driver's manual. She had to get something out of the car to verify her excuse. Her eyes fell on the opened bag of sunflower seeds Mulder had left crammed in the opened console beside their emptied coffee cups. She drew the plastic bag out and walked back around the lifeless hood.

"Seeds?" the girl frowned.

"They're my partner's. He has a proclivity."

Greta tossed back a sheet of curls that tumbled against her cheek. "A what?"

"A proc—a favorite thing that brings him comfort."

"Oh… I didn't know that word. Can you spell it please?"

Scully glanced at the girl as they trekked back up the road. Her little face—the expression was suddenly attentive, and sincere in a way that Scully hadn't seen: lips held back, ears exposed in the mane of hair she'd tucked back.

"P. R. O. C. L…"

The shabby green farmhouse loomed into view around the bend. The man chopping wood hadn't returned.

"I. V. I. T. Y."

Greta nodded. "Pro-cliv-i-ty."

Scully glanced about again. There were no other rooftops breaking the clean horizon of tall corn stalks and blue sky. The map was cooked to bits, but she remembered Mulder saying Springfield Road was an hour away. Struthers county was an hour back. She remembered having that argument clearly: they couldn't be too far out from a main road—a town—a phone.

"Greta, I'd really like to talk to my partner now."

The little girl paused on the porch steps. She turned and leaned against a worn post spiking with splinters.

"Why do you call him your partner?"

Scully hesitated. She stepped up and let the creaking, polished by boots, wood cool her soles in the shade of the porch. Greta stared at her, blue eyes waiting.

"Well, he's my part—" Scully pinched the half-filled plastic bag of sunflower seeds in her hand. "We work together. We work for the government, Greta. And we are partners. That's what people are called when they are teamed up in law-enforcement."

The little girl took in all the words and thought about them. She swung back her rushing dark hair again.

"That's a little bit boring, isn't it?"

"I'm sorry?"

"It's kind of boring—that story." Greta inched up and threw her gaze along Scully's hair. "I've been re-reading a novel—it's an epic story filled with drama, romance, and twists." Her voice came rushed like she couldn't get it out fast enough. "It's all set in sixteenth century, and the main character has brilliant orange hair, just like you. And it's a tragic love story."

The wind chime tinged again, and Scully bit her lip. She fought off a sense of panic washing over her.

"They first meet at a Masquerade ball." Greta threw out her arms. Pink pumped into her cheeks, or maybe the color of her dress was reflecting up in the shadow cast by an errand cloud that crossed the sun. "At first," Greta insisted, "He is a stranger and he's promised to another, but when the two meet at this ball, their attraction is so strong and so undeniable, that they have to see each other again."

Greta paused.

"Oh, yeah?" Scully managed, trying to keep her expression blank.

"Yes," the girl nodded. "I think your… partner—he would be perfect. We can act everything out to the detail."

"Muld—" She began to protest, and then her instinct revved like a screaming engine. Mulder. She would get to see him without passing out inexplicably. "Sure. That—that sounds like fun."

"Oh, lovely!" Greta clapped her hands. "Come along. I have the perfect dress."

They were on the porch. They were standing on the worn rickety porch, hiding from the harsh sunlight, but when Greta clapped her hands, Scully blinked and opened her eyes in a dusty room drenched in darkness and locked off from fresh air. The bag of sunflower seeds in her hand was all that proved she had been somewhere else. Greta walked over, pulled it away, and set it on a vanity dresser framed by brilliant though dusty bulbs.

"I think this one," the little girl hoisted up a dark blue dress that was frilly enough and poofy enough to swallow the child whole in its folds.

Scully glanced at the bag of seeds against the mirror. "Sure, that seems good. What time is the ball?" She needed to talk to Mulder.

"It's the queen's ball," Greta clarified, studying the lace on the bust of the blue thing. "I'll be the queen. And it's a Masquerade, so I made masks." She stretched a feathery raccoon eyed decoration toward Scully. "I don't think this dress will do. You would look better in something…violet. I know it seems too stark against your hair, but I think that's what the author meant when he said the masked newcomer caught the Gentleman's eye."

Scully glanced about the room. Dust was choking her to breathless limits, but she held still and held back. She needed to see Mulder at whatever the cost—there had already been too many incidents of missing time to risk arguing.

"This one," Greta beamed, pulling a dress out of the many racks, raising up more clouds of dry dust. The dress was lighter, laced with black fringes, but violet in the shades trapped beneath. "Try it on."

Scully cleared her throat. "Sure, um… Let me just duck back over here."

Greta waited while she slipped between rows of folded silk and velvet and surrendered her sweaty dress-shirt and her office skirt to the floor. The purple dress clung to her like glue, scratching and soft all at once. Scully coughed, resisting the dust. She couldn't reach back up far enough to finish the intricate thread knots that comprised the corset. After a minute, Greta leaned her dark haired head around the row of costumes.

"Need help?"

Anything to get to Mulder. "Yes—I can't get it laced all the way."

Greta walked up and worked her fingers through the loops. The speed of her hands was practiced and expert. It was not a speed a seven-year old should have mastered. Scully arched against the touch—Greta's fingers were cold as ice.

"I sewed this one myself, you know," the little girl mused.

"Really?"

"I get bored. Sometimes boredom breeds art. Look at you." She faced Scully with a soft smile on her little lips. "You're beautiful."

Scully plucked at the feathers of the mask she was holding. "When does the ball start?"

Greta frowned—a small line of concentration. "I'm the queen."

"Of course," Scully hurried, feeling her ribcage trapped by the corset and her lungs stuffed with dust.

"I want to do the whole story." The little girl tossed her hair back. "You will meet your gentleman at the Masquerade. He will be dancing with his promised, but you will catch his eye, and with a change of tune from the orchestra, he will walk up and ask for a dance."

"Sure," Scully nodded.

"Good. Ready?"

Scully glanced at the vanity dresser. The bag of sunflower seeds sat abandoned. "Let me just get a look at myself."

"Ok. I have to go get ready. The ballroom is down the hall out the door."

"What if—" Scully turned and saw Greta gone. The dust bunnies circled around the limp dresses.

She walked up to the dresser and dipped her hand into the bag. Sunflower seeds, still warm from the heat of the car, rubbed her palm. She took a handful and stood frozen for a moment. Why? Was it a message? The only message? Scully checked the tightness of her bodice and dumped the seeds between her cleavage.

She grabbed the mask and strapped it on. In the reflection she did not look herself—she looked like a doll: a flurry of sticking red hair around a feathered, glittering band of felt with two holes meant for her eyes. Her eyes were wide, pupils large.

The door led to a hallway with no doors. It led straight ahead. Scully walked the carpet until she came to an entryway that she made out in the dim, but couldn't explain in her logic or memory of the farm house's short capacity: a twenty-foot tall oak doubled door. Music—violin—could be heard from within. She pushed through and was nearly blinded by a mass of chandeliers under a ceiling that was at least forty feet tall.

A man in a black jacket bowed. Bodies—a multitude of dressed-up people circled in the grand hall beyond.

"How is this here?" Scully breathed.

The man only bowed again. Like everyone else in the grand hall, he was masked. He didn't wear a feathered eye-mask; he wore a full face cover in white and rhinestones sparkling under the flickering lights of the chandeliers. The music trickled. The orchestra, across the hall was a band of musicians stringing violins in rhythm—their faces, too, were covered in plastic and glittering stones.

Scully squinted against the light and twirling dresses. Far back, on a throne, Greta sat, small as ever, but regal and swallowed in pink satin like cotton candy. She took a small sip out a champagne glass and nodded across the hall at Scully.

 _Mulder._ Scully scoured the room. Was he here? The twirling, dancing bodies mixed across her vision, changing places, flicking up colors in the lining of their skirts and suit jackets.

A figure walked up to her. Not Mulder—an older man, gaunt by the measure of the weathered hand he stretched out to her in a bow. His face was covered like the others—a white bejeweled mask. Scully drew back and glanced about the hall again. There were forty-foot windows, she realized, edging the hall, draped as they were in velvet. Taller than the farm-house.

The older man brushed her wrist. His fingers pulled, but the touch was polite—careful and so urgent. Scully turned to his masked face and saw him glance back at Greta on the throne on the far end.

She smelled fear on him.

"I'd love to," her tongue worked on automatic—some scrape of intuitive improvisation that the man's agitation procured.

He relaxed his broad bony shoulders, and drew Scully closer, twirling her about the room, keeping a keen distance between. The tempo sped up. The man drew her closer to the center, into the mass of colliding bodies. Scully caught glimpses of Greta bobbing her head along to the tune, and glimpses of the other twirling people, and then she realized what it was that made her partner unique—eyes. Her dance partner had holes for eyes. No one else did. They just had masks.

Scully glanced up into the brown irises looking out at her through two perfectly cut slits. She leaned up.

"What's going on here?" she whispered.

The hand on her back tensed. The brown eyes focused on hers, liquid and trying to hold her attention

"Please, welcome the attendance," the man from the doorway called, "of Duke Harrington the Third and his lovely companion."

Scully pulled back from her dance partner and saw the body that she could recognize in the dark—Mulder. He stumbled in wearing a burgundy jacket and a black-feathered mask. On his arm was a woman with long blond hair. She wore her face covered completely and she clung to Mulder's arm even as he tripped.

Scully lunged away, but her dance partner clenched his fingers on her arm. She jerked her arm and saw him softly shake his head when she glared.

Mulder took in the scene and zeroed in on Scully. Across the the hall, Greta clapped her hands.

"More dancing, now!"

The orchestra rushed into an amped up speed. The brown-eyed man twirled Scully away from the entry scene. In dizzying circles, she watched masked Mulder lead the blonde girl deeper into the crowd. He was working his way toward the center where Scully was, but at every turn, she caught the piercing figure of Greta in pink, drinking champagne, watching.

The music climbed in volume. By some miracle of arbitrary physics—bodies colliding randomly, Scully got closer and closer to Mulder. It was as if the figures about them moved to make room. Soon, the two pairs were dancing side-by-side.

Mulder let go of the arm of his blonde companion and bowed to the man twirling Scully.

"May I interject?"

The man bowed in return, and took the blonde's hand. They spun away.

Mulder kissed Scully on the wrist. "I must say, you look so lovely I couldn't leave without a chance at getting acquainted."

Scully blinked in the flashing lights. "What are you talking about, Mul—"

He jerked her close against his dusty vest. "Play along," he hissed into her ear.

"What?" she breathed. His familiar scent swallowed her, but with it came a harshness to his touch—no fingertip brush against her lower back. He gripped her to him as they spun.

"You look so lovely tonight, Mademoiselle. How long are you staying in England?"

"What?" In the twirl, Scully caught the scrutiny of little Greta's eyes from the throne. In the same instant, she felt Mulder press something against her palm—a folded something. She looked up at him. It was him—it was Mulder. His wide eyes searched hers even as his smile remained plastic and tight beneath his black mask.

"I should love to know where you're staying," he said.

"Muld—"

"Duke. Harrington."

The blonde and Scully's dance partner brushed up against them, blocking the sight of them from a direct view from the throne where Greta sat frowning.

"Play along," Mulder hissed again into Scully's ear.

"Mulder, what the hell is going on?" she hissed back.

Something fell to the floor, spun away, and smacked against Scully's bare foot. She glanced down. It was a bejeweled white mask. She traced her eyes up.

Mulder grabbed her chin and pulled her cheek against his stubble. "Whatever you feel, don't make a sound. Don't scream," he whispered into her ear.

She wrestled away from him and looked back down at the mask that had snapped off and tumbled to the floor. The crowd closed in, blocking sight of them from the throne.

A man turned.

Scully looked up as he turned. She couldn't have screamed. Not because she didn't want to—not because it wasn't every drive firing her impulse—she didn't scream because her shock was the sort of horror that came soundlessly, after years of dissecting bodies on autopsy tables, and still seeing horror.

He was a dancer in the crowd, but his mask had come off.

He didn't have a face.

The lights flickered, slow. Scully blinked, slow. She felt Mulder clutch her up—fingers that were the only thing holding her up. The sound of violins slowed into a groan.

The man had a face that was melted like plastic. A face that only had one semblance of an eyelid, a mush of a face, and two nostrils that flared, breathing.

Across the stretch of mush—across his living melted face—were drawings—markers—kiddie drawings of eyes, nose, and lips, drawn onto breathing flesh: big cartoon fish eyes and lips that were scratched out because they hadn't been done well enough—a mess of pink marker. This was the man that looked at her.

Scully felt her knees give.

"Easy, easy," Mulder whispered in her ear.

She'd let go of the folded note he passed into her palm, but he caught it as it slipped through her fingers.

"Easy," he whispered again. "Keep quiet."

Mulder pulled her close. The faceless man put his mask back on. The music resumed. Ahead, Greta leaned sideways to see. The crowd twirled.

Scully held back a violent wrench of vomit.

"It was such a pleasure meeting you, Mademoiselle," Mulder bowed. "I should love to speak again."

She clenched the note now, turned her back to Greta and tucked it between her cleavage. Sunflower seeds spilled out. Mulder bit his lip. Scully grasped a handful and tucked it into his hand.

His eyes widened—

Scully woke up to the embroidery on a dusty pillow. Her fist was clutched to her chest. She slid up her eyelids and checked the room. No Greta. She dipped in and pried out the folded thing tucked against her breast.

It was his shirt—a scrap of his sweaty white cotton. On it, in a pink marker, were scribbled the words,

 _Play along. Don't get her mad._


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Scully stared at Muldler's note. It was scratched in a hurry on a scrap of his shirt. She couldn't make sense of it—of anything.

It was a little girl—just a little girl. How could—

She looked up and glanced at the door. It dawned on her that for the first time since she saw Greta walk up to them on the road, the girl wasn't around. Scully was alone.

She tucked the note back into the bodice of the dusty dress, jumped off the bed, rushed up to the door, and paused. It was a bad idea to just burst out into the hallway—she might run into somebody. Greta herself, or… Scully forced back the nausea that bubbled up at the memory of the man with the melted face. She pressed her ear to the oak and tried as best as she could to slow her breathing, listening for any sound however slight. There was nothing. The air was dead, lifeless.

Scully turned and looked the room over. A weapon would be useful—her weapon ideally, but the fancy bedroom décor offered no options. None, unless she could arrest someone with an embroidered pillow. She walked up to the dresser and checked the drawers, finding nothing apart from a petrified moth cocoon that rolled out of a back corner.

The curtains were drawn. The sliver between them was bright as ever. Scully stared at it, wondering how much time had elapsed exactly. She had no watch. She remembered picking hers up off the dresser, back in her apartment in DC, noticing it needed to be rewound, and tossing it back down because the phone had rung. She didn't think she would need it either—not on a short detour into Ohio to look for the 'beast of Akron' that Mulder found in a cheap tabloid expose about rural legends.

Scully stared at the window. Maybe she could climb down the side of the house. Poufy dress aside, it was a viable option. She walked up and drew open the curtains. Sunlight flooded in, stinging her eyes. She brushed her fingertips along the frame, searching for a latch, and realized that it wasn't a window that opened. All the windows she saw on the farmhouse when she had looked back where simple windows—short rectangles with cheap white lace and bug-screens. The height alone of the expanse of glass before her didn't match.

The view beyond sparkled into definition, and Scully froze, realizing that there was somebody outside. The window showed the backyard: a stretch of bright green grass circled by what must have been flower beds at one point. Beyond them, lay the wall of corn, but in the center of the clearing towered a white gazebo. Several rungs were missing from its decorative railing. Inside, a woman sat with her back turned. It wasn't the woman that had served tea—it wasn't Greta's Nina. It was a woman with short curling blonde hair, and she sat still, facing the cornfield.

Scully stared at her and then glanced over the window again. The door was definitely the only way out of the bedroom. She walked up and cracked it open. It creaked and she paused, listening. After a minute she swung it further.

The sunlight from the undraped window rushed into the dusty hallway and Scully saw that it was empty. It was a short hallway, carpeted, with three other bedroom doors. It and the doors looked exactly what a second story of a farmhouse was supposed to look like: plain with low ceilings and worn wallpaper.

Scully hurried out and opened the door across from hers. She faced an empty room—a small bedroom with worn floor panels which had swollen and rotted in one corner from excess moisture and mold. She tried the next door and saw almost the exact same scene. At the peak of the hallway, past a linen closet that was empty and smelling rank with rotted wood, she faced what looked to be a master bedroom. It still had furniture, but nothing like the luxurious accommodations in hers. A large bed sat in the middle. It was not a poster bed. The mattress was old—old in its style, too. It was torn on one end, as if bitten away, and Scully was sure that she caught sight of a tail slipping into it, startled by her presence. To one side of the bed, sat a short nightstand with an ash tray and a framed picture. Scully glanced back and walked in to take a closer look.

The picture wasn't scratched out with markers like the ones she saw in the stairwell. In fact, it was the only item in the room that wasn't coated in a layer of dust. There were marks on the top of the nightstand as though the picture had been picked up and cleaned often, sometimes set back in a place slightly off. The photograph, in black and white, depicted an old woman. Her white hair was pulled back, but full and bursting. She'd faced the camera with a direct wide gaze, as if challenging her viewer.

Scully set the photograph down and circled the bed to the window. This window matched the outside of the house—a simple rectangle with stained white lace curtains. It looked out at the road, over the roof of the porch, onto cornfields. Scully tried to pull it up, but it was stuck. It was only after a few attempts to put her muscle into the task, that Scully noticed the shiny heads of nails beaten into the frame.

She turned back and scoured the room again. This was the last room in the hallway. Where was Mulder then? Her eyes fell on a groove in the mattress. It wasn't a fresh groove—it was stale and dank, edged with a brownish stain, and if it had been made by a body, it had been made by a body that was bony and frail—an old woman's body.

The dust in the room threatened to choke her. Scully walked out, down the hall and studied the carpeted, curling banister stairwell. It was bizarre—the very architecture: a room on one end that belonged to a farmhouse, another right beside it that belonged in a mansion. A banister stairwell? A hall with chandeliers? She listened. Still, there was no sound. She walked down, her own bare feet soundless on the carpet. Her fingertips grazed the railing as she glanced over the scratched-out photographs again. One particular picture unnerved her. It was a portrait of someone whose face had been pasted over with a white blot, and a new face drawn atop with childish inadequacy—cartoon eyes and mouth.

When she stepped down the last step, Scully heard music—a record player. It was a faint sound, somewhere in the nether of the house, beyond the dining room she knew lay to her left. She resisted the urge to follow, and walked instead into the foyer. She opened the plain green front door and glanced back. Still, no one was around, and even her trained sense didn't pick up any possible watching eyes. She was a free agent. If only she knew where Mulder had gone.

Scully stepped out onto the porch. The weather was just the same: cotton clouds, a light breeze on the air rustling the stalks, plucking a ting here and there from the rusted wind chimes. There was no sound of wood being chopped. Scully walked down the porch steps and around the side to where she had seen the man—Jimmy—working. The axe sat lodged in a log.

Axe, she thought. There was a weapon. But what of it? Run amok though the house wielding and axe like a lunatic? She pushed back the urge to do just that, and circled the house toward the backyard. The white gazebo loomed into view, and Scully hesitated. The blonde woman sat still, like she hadn't moved an inch, staring at the cornfields with her back to Scully.

Scully wasn't sure what she would see when walked up. She glanced up at the house. It looked like an abandoned house—lifeless. The few windows that stretched onto its side were black—no hint of movement of any kind.

She shrugged her shoulders and crossed the fresh grass with her bare feet. The grass was clipped. The flower beds had been abandoned and left to weeds, but the grass had been clipped. The gazebo neared. Scully rounded it, to the entryway, and as she did, the woman's profile came into view. The woman turned to the sound and faced her.

"Oh, Christ," Scully breathed.

The woman's face—Scully's trained medical brain flashed the word 'stoke', but that wasn't it. The woman's face was melted cleanly on one side—her left side. The features of her right were intact and tragically pretty: a heavily lidded hazel eye with thick lashes, a high cheek bone, and a dip that curved into full rosy lips of half of a mouth. Her left side wash a mash—a smeared lump of flesh on which someone had drawn—with albeit more care—the features she was missing: a cartoon eye with thick lashes and an iris colored in green and brown marker, and the rest of her lips in magenta, edged carefully to mimic her dipping curves, but still asymmetrical.

"Hello, dear, " the woman said. Her voice was calm, and silvery, laced with an accent—a Boston accent. Her short blonde curls dipped and grazed the nape of her neck. She turned away and faced the cornfields again.

Scully glanced back at the house and walked up the few steps of the gazebo. "Hello," she ventured. "What—how—Who are you?"

The woman's hand on her lap tensed, scrunching the folds of her blue summer dress into sharp folds. "That's not a question you should ask anymore."

Scully hesitated. Her ridiculously big purple dress itched her in the baking sunlight. There was a shadow—shade—across the bench, next to the woman. It was also on her real side—her right side. Scully bit her lip, walked into the ornate creaking thing, and settled on the bench. She faced the corn, but glanced at the woman. The woman looked no older than twenty-three at that angle—a young thing.

Scully cleared her throat.

"I'm sorry," the young woman said, not moving her eyes from the stalks. "I forget myself, you know. When did you get here, sweetheart?" Her tone was polite, forced, and so tired.

"I'm not sure. I think maybe today. Or maybe yesterday." Scully studied her companion.

The young woman threw her a look out of her real hazel eye. "That's how it goes. Are you hungry?"

"What?"

"Do you feel like you still get hungry?"

Adrenaline had blocked out Scully's baser needs, but when she focused on them now, she did feel an emptiness in her stomach.

"It's while you still feel hungry," the woman went on, "that you still live in between. The mind performs on habit… your brain thinks you need to sustain your body. It's when you realize that you don't have to eat, that you know."

Scully frowned, studying every inch of the woman who looked so much younger than her. "What do you mean?"

"Don't tell me what year it is, alright?" The woman twisted her hand again. "I don't want to hear it. But I'll tell you the last year—the last date I know—June sixteenth, nineteen fifty-seven."

"Fif—"

"Please, don't." The woman scratched her fingers against the folds of her dress. "Please… don't.'

Scully swallowed back her question and drew a breath. "What's your name?"

The hazel eye darted toward her again. "Susanna… Sue."

"Sue, I'm Dana. I just—My partner and I got lost on the road and we—"

Sue chuckled—a harsh sound that was almost involuntary. "Yeah, I know."

"You know?"

"It's the only way you can find the place." She said that phrase like she was reciting a common statement—a cheeriness drenched with a hard undertone. Her short blonde curls rustled in the breeze. "Everyone says they were lost. At first. Then… after a while, they stop thinking about it." Sue turned and faced Scully. "Your hair is red. What is it? The Masquerade ball novel? She likes that one, but she gets really mad if it doesn't go perfectly." Sue sighed—a breath that slipped out of her lips only in the right corner, accenting her wrecked left side. "It's a shame—to get locked into that one right off the bat."

"Greta?" Scully said. "She's—what? Seven?"

Sue's neck lurched, and she glanced back at the house for the first time. "Don't be a fool. Play along, " she hissed.

"Why? It's a little girl."

Sue faced her, one drawn cartoon eye, and the other moist and wide. "She's not a little girl—not anymore. She's—" Sue's chest started pumping. "We were lost—just like you. Charlie and I." She pronounced it 'Chaa-lee'. "We were on our trip back from our honeymoon—to visit my mother in Boston, bring her our knick-knacks and whatnot, and the car just died. It was a perfect car. It was my Daddy's wedding gift: a bright new Cadillac, right off the assembly line." She drew short of breath, and paused. "It's unfair—you don't have to eat, you don't have to drink, but you still feel everything—your heart pounding in your chest."

Scully felt her skin crawl. Where the hell was Mulder? "Where's Charlie?" she asked the young woman.

She tensed. A scowl crossed the living half of her pretty features. "Charlie? Charlie tried to kill her."

"What? The girl?"

"She comes up on us in the middle of the road and acts all countryside hospitality. I was thinking, this girl must have wandered away. I was thinking we should at least walk her back to where her parents are. Charlie got mad." Sue swallowed. "He was already mad, because the Cadillac was a big gift and he thought my daddy was trying to make statement about how his son-in-law could never make as much money." She hurried through the words, staring at the cornfield. "I—I called him insensitive. And he—Charlie, you know—he had this way of brushing back his hair when he was frustrated. It was thick and dark. He looked like a Presley imitator at a club, only more handsome. And it was so hot that night, and we had been driving for so long… She—the girl—she just smiled."

Scully leaned in, and Sue glanced at her again. "She asked, 'did your car break?'" Sue went on. "We were screaming at one another, Charlie and I. When the girl came up, I wanted out—out of everything. Out of the marriage even." Sue clasped her hand to her mouth. "I didn't know—I didn't know that on God's green earth such a frivolous wish could be granted in such a cruel way."

Scully felt her heart skip. "What happened to Charlie?"

Sue drew her arms up and rubbed her shoulders. "You should get back—now. The thing—the girl—she's in her library now, and the ball last night let us all out for a breather because she's bent on acting out the Masquerade novel. The next part in the novel is that you pine for your stranger—whoever she picked. She's studying every line of the novel now, creating it. It's only a matter of time. You should go."

Scully glanced back at the house and its plain lifeless windows.

"Go now," Sue urged and faced the cornfield.

Scully stood.

She wanted to talk, but the prickling feeling urged her back to only one thought: Mulder. Where was Mulder if he wasn't upstairs?

Scully circled the house and slipped into the front door, into the dusty dim. From the hallway, she heard the record-player again, coupled with voices arguing: one child-like and annoyed—Greta's. The other: a cold voice with a rasping lisp. Scully looked up the steps of the stairwell. Where was Mulder?

The voices came from the left of the stairwell—down a parquet floor and behind another oak door that had no business in a farmhouse.

Scully stepped closer to listen.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"It's a risk, Miss Greta," a lisping voice sounded behind the door. "They are government agents."

"I don't quite know what that is, Nina." The little girl's tone was languid, distracted, bored almost. "I'm working on something. Won't you go away?"

"I'm thinking only of your safety." Nina's pitch trembled. "Government agents. The government—the military—an army will look for them. They're not like the others."

"So? Let them look."

"At least melt them now—at least their mouths so they can't talk."

"No." Greta exploded, harsh and annoyed. "No. Dr. Dellower's Guide on Self-Improvement states that we must learn from our mistakes and exercise our new knowledge in similar circumstances by acting in a different way." She rushed, reciting. "I will not make a mistake this time, Nina."

"Miss Greta—"

"I am finished with this conversation." The girl's voice, light and bell-like as it was, rang with authoritative finality. "Now, bring me Miss Dana. I finished my work."

Scully jumped away from the door and backed up. She had no time to hide back upstairs. The door opened, and the maid stepped out onto the parquet floor. She flinched when she saw Scully, and the two stared at one another.

The woman's face was melted almost as badly as the man Scully had seen in the ballroom. One eyelid blinked out of the mush, and only the mouth, which was warped in one corner, had been left semi-intact.

How were they breathing and living like this?

Nina's drawn-on features—a crude eye and nose in black marker—faced Scully like the impotent doodle they were.

"What are you doing downstairs?" The question was quiet, voice lisping, the tone—dark and mischievous.

"Nina?" Greta called from behind the door. "I said, bring me Miss Dana."

The maid tensed, unwilling it seemed to disengage from Scully, but then she turned and swung the door open.

"Miss Dana," she said, gave a short bow, and walked off down the hall.

Scully stepped forward, glancing about. The library was small; it fit the outside size of the house. Scully wasn't sure why that surprised her. Perhaps, with the parquet floors and banister stairwell, she expected a grand thing to open up inexplicably—a library fit for Professor Higgins. Instead, she stepped into a small room with a short ceiling, lined with old bookshelves, surrounding a desk laden with opened books and papers, and a worn couch, on which Greta now lounged.

The little girl sat up and beamed. She was back in her pink dress. The light of a window on the far wall bathed the edges of her dark hair, igniting them with a bluish tint, mimicking the color of eyes.

"Miss Dana, you're still wearing your ball gown?"

Scully cleared her throat. What else was supposed to be wearing? She had no idea where the room was where she had taken off her blouse and skirt.

"You must have had such a magical time," Greta went on, not noticing Scully's discomfort. "And I have a surprise for you."

"What is it?" Scully asked carefully. Surprises were an unpleasant prospect in this bizarre household. She glanced about the library again. Maybe it would have been a good idea to take the axe.

"Your Gentleman delivered a note this morning."

Scully jerked her gaze back onto the little girl. Mulder's note—his scrap of shirt—nestled against her breast where she had stashed it. Her eyes fell on a square of paper in Greta's hand.

"Go on—read it!"

Scully walked up. Greta patted the couch cushion beside her, stirring up dust, and Scully relented and sat down. She unwrapped the paper.

 _When I strive to banish you from my thoughts, I only discover that I am a weak man—perhaps, a mad man. I must see you again._

 _-R._

It was not a note from Mulder. Even if Mulder had some ludicrous reason to write such nonsense, the handwriting didn't match. Scully glanced up and saw the cover of a book plastered open atop the mess on the desk. It was a Harlequin romance novel, complete with a cliché depiction of two lovers on a horse. Greta had to have copied the note right out of the novel verbatim.

Scully looked over her wide expectant eyes. _Play along,_ Mulder had urged.

"Well?" Greta beamed.

"It's..." Scully strived to remember the details of the story Greta wanted to reenact. "How do I meet him if he's promised to another?" she asked.

"Oh," Greta fell back and drew an artful wrist to her forehead. "You don't. You pine." Her blue gaze darted at Scully. "You know what that means, right? Not like the tree."

"Like longing," Scully nodded. Pining for Mulder?—how long would that take? She glanced at the book-cover again. It didn't matter: it was a romance story. Eventually there would be a tryst. Mulder would have to be present. As soon as that took place, they could make their escape.

Scully swallowed. _Escape._ She actually thought the word—how was it that a little girl made her feel like this? If it weren't for the blackouts and melted faces, Scully would have torn the house apart until she found Mulder, and then called in swat, the EMTs, CDC, everyone. Her instinct bid her to be still. She needed to stay awake... at least until she found a phone—somehow.

"Exactly." Greta smiled. "Like longing. Now, you long for him."

"For—for how long?"

Greta frowned. "I'm now sure—it didn't say. It just said that you can't eat, and you grow so distraught that you become bed-ridden."

"Oh…" Scully shifted. She tried the little girl's own line of thinking against her. "That's a bit boring, isn't it?"

Greta sighed. "Yeah." She sat up and her dark curls tumbled forward. "It is. All the good parts come later." She glanced at Scully. "We can do something else to pass the time."

"Why don't we just skip ahead?"

"No." The little eyebrows twisted. "The story has to be perfect—exactly like in the book."

A pain shot through Scully's temple. "You're right," Scully hurried. "It wouldn't be right to skip ahead. We'll just pass the time, while I… pine." She glanced around again. "How many books do you have, Greta?"

The girl smiled. The pain in Scully's temple vanished like a pin had been pulled out. "One hundred and thirty-seven," the girl said. "I've read them all, cover-to-cover."

Scully studied the bindings on the shelves. There were a few classics—the _Count of Monte Cristo_ , and _Grapes of Wrath_ —but as a whole, it seemed a sorry and scattered collection. There was even a manual on lawn-mower repair wedged into the ranks.

"In your car," Greta said, leaning in, "do you have any books?"

"What?"

Greta bit her lip. Her eyes grew urgent, hungry almost. "Sometimes, people have books in their cars. Do you have any?"

Scully studied her. "You like to read, don't you, Greta?"

The girl nodded, still waiting for an answer to her question.

"What about a trip to a bookstore?" Scully ventured out on a limb. "There are hundreds of books there, thousands—ones you've never read."

Greta held still, thinking. "Bookstore," she said slowly. Whatever trigger Scully was reaching for worked: a curiosity—a temptation sparked in the wide blue eyes. "You would take me?"

"Of course. Maybe Jimmy could fix the car, and I'll drive you—"

Greta frowned. "I'll think about it." Her tone grew cold, suspicious, but behind it still lingered that temptation at the idea. "You should get back to pining," Greta straightened her shoulders, seeming unsettled. "You're supposed to be bed-ridden."

"Yes, but—"

* * *

Scully opened her eyes to the dusty embroidery of the pillow.

"Damn it!" she cursed, sitting up.

This was getting ridiculous.

She jumped off the bed, crossed the room, burst into the hallway, and froze. It wasn't the same hallway. It was tall, long, with large doors numbering. Scully rushed over and tried one, finding it locked. She tried another, and another, until, halfway down the gallery of oak, she found one knob that turned.

The room beyond was just as dusty, but lavish, with a poster bed. On the bed, Mulder lay, sleeping.

Scully ran over.

"Mulder," she hissed. "Mulder—wake up!"

He didn't. He didn't even flinch under her grip as she shook him.

"Mulder," she hissed again, leaning close to his ear. "Mulder, wake the hell up!"

His breathing was even—unperturbed. He was knocked-out cold. Scully glanced over his ridiculous ballroom getup, and shook him again as hard as she could.

"Mulder!" Nothing.

Slap him? Scully reared back her palm and paused, hearing a noise from the hallway. Getting caught this way was probably a bad idea: it might lead to another set-back. She slipped into the hall and rushed toward her door. Greta was yelling on the stairwell, her voice rising as she climbed the steps.

"Well, _you_ can't take me, can you Nina?" she screamed. "Not with your ugly face messed up as it is." She flew onto the top step and rounded the corner. "Oh," she hesitated, seeing Scully.

"Hi," Scully breathed, feeling panic.

"Go away, Nina," Greta called down the stairs and stepped closer to Scully. She was holding a bundle. "Nina says people wear jeans and t-shirts. Is that true?"

"Wha—yeah. Yes."

"Good." Greta nodded. Her little face was tight, the expression focused, and fiendish. "I brought you some. I want to go to the bookstore, like you said."

"Oh. The car?"

"It runs just fine."

Scully took the bundle from Greta's proffered arms. "Why don't we bring my partner, too?"

Greta's eyes narrowed. "Why would we do that?"

"I just thought—"

"You like him very much, don't you?" The little girl cut her off.

What was the right answer?

Greta didn't wait for one. She brushed past Scully down the hall. "Come," she ordered. Scully followed her until they came to the room where she had just found Mulder.

Greta walked in and circled the bed to stand by his side. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, she pulled out a knife—a flat, sharp, enormous meat-cleaver.

"What are you doing?" Scully cried, dropped the clothes, and leapt toward the girl.

She couldn't move. She froze, mid-step, and couldn't move. Inexplicable paralysis: every cell in her body screamed to grab the girl, but Scully couldn't move a finger.

"Listen," Greta said, her voice calm and measured. "This is my house." She pressed the edge of the knife to Mulder's steadily pulsing neck. "In my house, I make the rules."

Scully groaned, watching the blade's edge graze Mulder's skin. She couldn't move. She couldn't even blink.

"I want to go to the bookstore, but I don't want to be tricked. Do you understand?" Greta's eyes stuck onto Scully's, cold and focused. Scully couldn't move her lips to answer. "I don't like any tricks," Greta went on, pressing the knife. "So, just to make sure you do what you promised, I will leave this knife here." She let go of the handle and it hung in the air on its own, still pressing to Mulder's neck. "If you trick me, or make me mad, this knife will come down and slash your... partner's throat. Do you understand?"

Scully couldn't even nod.

"I don't want any sudden movements. I don't want you talking to anybody. And right now, I want you to be quiet, and put on the jeans and t-shirt. Ok?"

The paralysis left Scully as suddenly as it had gripped her. She stumbled. She glanced at the knife and back at the wide blue eyes.

How? How was this possible?

The length of the blade—the position of it—if it was possible for the knife to remain suspended midair, it was possible for it to come down. If it came down—

"Alright," Scully nodded. "Alright." She picked up the clothes off the floor. What she needed was time—she needed to stall. She had to slow her brain which was firing off a multitude of impulses, and… play along. For now.

They walked down the porch. The weather hadn't changed: fluffy clouds tumbled as ever across the brilliant sky. Scully waked out in her new get up—a pair of worn denims, a plain gray tee, and sandals that were a bit too large and slapped her heels, slowing her walk. She appreciated the freedom of movement the rest of her ensemble allowed, though. Mulder's shirt-scrap note stayed hidden in her bra.

Greta turned to the sound of Scully's sandals slapping. "I told her that you walk barefoot like Baba," she said, almost in apology, "but Nina said people have to wear shoes in stores."

"That's true," Scully nodded, glancing about. She was making a decision. What she remembered was that Struthers country was an hour back up the road, and that ahead, was Springfield road—forty-five minutes away, if Mulder's stubborn push to get there proved the right choice. "Your Baba, that was your great-grandmother, right?" she said to keep the girl talking and not noticing any tension.

"Yes. My Baba. She was amazing. She knew everything about everything."

They came up to the car, and Greta climbed in on the passenger's side. Scully slipped behind the wheel, feeling sweat bead up on her back in an instant. The cabin was a sauna. The keys were in the ignition where Mulder had left them. She turned them forward and felt a rush of relief when the engine purred up like a kitten. She reached down and pulled the switch to move the seat forward.

"What are you doing?" Greta flinched. The little girl was tense—nervous.

"My partner was driving last. He's longer than me. I need to have my feet reach the pedals."

"Oh." Greta tapped her fingers on the console with an agitated rhythm. Despite the intense heat, there didn't seem to be a trace of sweat on her, not even a glisten.

Scully rolled all four windows down, and pulled ahead. Springfield road, she decided. She didn't like to admit it, but Mulder had a better instinct when it came to roaming the stretches of America. And Springfield road led to the interstate, he'd pointed out. There was a better chance at finding a more trafficked town than Struthers could offer.

The cornfields rushed past them on either side, green and rustling.

"Slow down, slow down!" Greta cried. They had only broken twenty-five miles an hour. "Why are you going so fast?"

Scully drew her foot off the accelerator. "Greta, this is a country road. It's a sixty—We're supposed to go fast. It's the only way to get across the large distances."

Greta drew shallow breaths, glancing all about. "I just—I've never gone that fast in a buggy."

Buggy?"Ok," Scully said. "I'll go as slow as I can, but it will make the trip longer."

Greta threw a look at Scully and then at the corn again. "How long? It has to be under six hours."

Time! Scully glanced at the dashboard—she hadn't even thought to check. The numbers flashed 10:13. If only they showed the date.

"Then we'll have to go faster," Scully said and leaned on the accelerator.

The little girl scrunched her face as Scully sped up to the speed limit. Greta closed her eyes against the rushing wind that beat her dark hair around her small face through the window. The cornfields seemed a green sheet, and endless. After a full half-hour, Scully's excitement turned into fearful uncertainty. There wasn't a hint of anyone—anything. How could so much crop rush past them without the property claim of farmhouses and silos? She began to think she was imagining things. She began to think she was dreaming, or living out some sort of cruel LSD slip.

Then, like a beacon of hope and logic, a red octagon loomed in her view.

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" Greta yelled.

Scully was already leaning on the brake as the sign instructed. She glanced over at Greta who'd become a trembling mess.

"Yes," Scully said, trying to keep anything patronizing out of her tone. "It's a stop-sign, Greta."

"Just stop. Stop for a minute."

They had already rolled to a complete halt at the crossroad. Greta sat up, panting, and glanced back up the road they'd rushed.

"You remember where the knife is, don't you?"

Scully nodded, shifting her hands on the wheel. Had she upset her? What was agitating this girl?

"It can't be more than six hours," Greta hurried, her voice hard, and… scared. "No more than six hours. We go to the bookstore, and we go back immediately."

"Sure, of course." Scully glanced at the dashboard. Six hours was plenty of time.

"Good. As long as we understand each other." The girl settled back into the seat, eyes wide-open now, and her shoulders scrunching like she sought protection from the expanse of felt at her small back.

They turned right at the T of the roads, and Scully noticed the other sign posted beneath the red stop-sign: a blue metal sheet the silver back of which she hadn't caught in the sunlight. It read _Dead Road. Keep Ahead for Gas and Rest._ She hadn't seen anything like that before, and now, she glanced at the fuel gage. They were at a quarter tank. Something needed to open up. There was good hope for it, though. Out of the cornfield stretch, trees loomed out, farm houses, congealing. A motor-repair shop with tires piled high rushed past them. Evidence of life and business grew thicker and thicker, leading without doubt to a town center, and then—

"Oh, my God," Scully cried despite herself.

Out of nowhere, like a bucket of ice-cold water, hunger and thirst washed over her. Extreme hunger, extreme thirst—the kind of thing that happens to a body that hadn't had either in over forty-eight hours. Her body jerked, groaning from every muscle. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Sparks flew across her vision, threatening faint. She had to eat. Now.

"Baba always said God was relative," Greta said in a distracted way. She was staring all about her, taking everything in with rejuvenated excitement and curiosity.

Scully gripped the wheel, willing her blood to keep pumping into her brain, willing away the exhausted darkness that pushed to wash over her. She needed to eat.

A roadside gas-station came into view and Scully jerked into it like she was begging for mercy.

"What are you doing?" Greta demanded.

Her tongue was dry. She could barely get the words out. "Need gas. Car will die out if we don't fill it up." Scully swung open the door.

"Wait!" Greta ordered and Scully froze. Despite everything—despite the insane pain in her stomach and throat, Scully needed to keep this child happy. The image of the blade on Mulder's neck flashed across her brain. "I don't want you talking to anyone about anything," Greta said.

"Greta," It was so hard to work her dried out tongue against her mouth. Scully felt like her insides had been reduced to sandpaper. "I don't know the area. I need to ask where the bookstore is."

The girl studied her, and then the gas station. "Very well. I'll come with you."

They walked across the parking lot. Scully did her best to keep slow with the little girl's small steps. She wanted to run. When they crossed beyond the glass door, and Scully saw the rows of dusty bags of snacks, and the cooler—with water—she lost all control. She grabbed a bottle out of the fridge and chugged it. Then she ripped open a bag of pretzels and shoved them down in hungry handfuls. She couldn't stop. The pain was so intense. Greta watched her, fascinated.

Out of the back, a large man with a big belly and a few oil stains on his worn blue shirt emerged and studied the red-haired woman gulfing down the snacks in the middle of his establishment.

"I'm sorry," Scully choked out, finding her voice with the water she'd drank. "I'm paying for everything. I just—"

The man leaned on the counter and grinned. "You come off the Dead Road?"

"What?"

"No gas, too, I bet." He nodded, chuckling. "Everyone around here knows not to drive that stretch. In this heat? It'll kill ya unless you go in with provisions." He pulled back and patted his chest, still looking them over. "Where you from? Traveling?" His eyes fell on Greta and her doll-like getup.

Scully grabbed more bags of pretzels and bottles of water and dumped them on his counter, along with the ones she'd emptied. "We're, um… visiting… my aunt. It's her birthday." She didn't sell it well. The man glanced her over again and darted his eyes back to the little girl. Greta had picked up a pack of Skittles and looked it over with an expression of pure confusion. Scully grabbed it out of the little girl's fingers, and laid it next to the pile she was buying. "My daughter," she said to the man.

"Oh." His eyebrows arched as he began to ring up the items. "Visiting you aunt? She can't be from around here, then. Or else, she'd know to warn you about taking that stretch."

Scully cleared her throat. Greta plucked at the plastic coating of the counter and edged around to read the cigarette brands.

"She's out in Pittsburgh," Scully said. "I thought I'd take a short-cut this time. Didn't know what I was getting into."

The man relaxed and chuckled again. He ran a surreptitious eye down Scully's body. "You oughta be more careful in the future, then, Ms. There is such a thing as fields where corn just won't grow. Twelve-eighty-five."

"Right." Scully dipped her hand to her hip pocket on reflex and paused. Her wallet? How could she be so stupid? Where on earth was her wallet?

Greta stepped closer and stretched the familiar brown leather fold toward Scully. "Mama, you dropped this."

She hadn't.

Scully drew a short breath, willing the panic down. "Thank you, sweetheart." She flipped the wallet open—her credit cards, her license, her cash. How was she not thinking about this before? She pulled out the bills. "And twenty on pump number two, please."

"Sure, thing," the man nodded and rang her up, bagging her items.

"Mama," Greta urged. "What about the bookstore?"

"Right, um, we're trying to get a gift on the go. My aunt loves books. Is there a place? Around here?"

The man frowned, looking out of the glass door as he scratched his chest. "Yeah. We've got a Barnes n' Noble getting built in the mall closer up to Boardman… That wouldn't help you today though, would it?" He chuckled to himself. "Not open yet. Yeah, uh—Poland Antiques. They're selling used books for change. Seems like Sam's going to Florida for his retirement."

"And where's that?"

"Just up ahead. Past the old horse track. They're clearing that out, too, you know. Gonna build a shopping plaza."

Scully took the bags he proffered, salivating at the sight of more sustenance. "Just up ahead—what, twenty minutes?"

"What? No, you'll hit it in ten if you're going that way." His eyes ran over her again. "Tell you what else: I just had the Cocca's boy deliver me a large. Would you like a slice of pizza?"

Scully's stomach roared. "On the go?"

"'Course," he laughed. "Hang on." He disappeared behind the cigarette display and emerged with a hot slice dripping in stringing cheese across a paper plate.

"Thanks," Scully grabbed it.

"Hospitality," he smiled. "Especially for someone who came out of the dead stretch. Here's a sucker for your little girl, too." He plucked the candy from a jar by the register. "You take care now."

"Thank you," Scully said again as she rushed Greta out the door.

"B-A-U-tiful," she heard the man say to himself as they walked out into the lot.

Scully devoured the slice of pizza as they walked to the pump, and then she threw rest of the bags into the backseat through the opened window. Greta watched her as she drew the nozzle and plugged it into the gas-cap. The girl twirled the unopened sucker in her hand.

"E," she said.

"What?" Scully turned.

"b. E. a. u-tiful. That's how it's spelled."

"Oh." The heat of the sun baked Scully. Ohio was cruel in May. "It's just a pass—a compliment."

"What's a sucker?" Greta asked.

"A lolly-pop," Scully answered absently, patting her forehead and arguing with her body that wanted to fall down now that all blood was in the stomach. She glanced at Greta's confused expression while the air filled up with gasoline fumes. "A candy. A sweet."

"A sweet?" Greta studied the twisted wrapper on her treat. She unlaced it and placed the bright orange sugar-ball to her tongue. "It tastes like nothing." She tossed the candy down, into a puddle of water that had congealed against the pump along with rainbow rivets of sprayed gasoline. "Who's Sam?"

"Hm?" Scully shifted into the sparse shade offered by the awning. "The owner of a bookstore ten minutes away, from what I figure." The nozzle clicked, and Scully drew it out and replaced it into the pump." Her mind was clearing. Her body was negotiating with the strain. The pizza had given her vigor. "Let's go."

Greta obliged and climbed into the passenger's side. "It's not a country road now. So, you won't go as fast, right?"

Scully glanced at the speed limit signs—thirty-five. "I'll go as slow as I can. It's only ten minutes away. You don't want to waste time, do you, Greta?"

"No." The little girl glanced up at the beating sun. "No, I don't."

"Okay, then."

Scully pulled out of the gas-station and down the road. In a short while, white railings ran along Greta's window, a bit after that—a large abandoned building loomed into view, half-demolished. The trees clustered thicker: crab-apple trees in May, blossoming and blowing off their petals in the breeze. On her side, Scully saw buildings and buildings grow close.

Then, after such a short stretch, a sign caught her eye:

 _Books from Sam and Olsen._


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"Books from Sam and Olsen," Greta read out loud as they pulled in off the road.

The store didn't share a parking lot with other businesses. It sat alone, in the shade of blooming trees that blew tiny white petals through the air. A short distance away, a house towered, red, with white columns. Family business, Scully thought to herself.

The girl climbed out of the car and faced the sign. "What's a Salee?"

"Hm?" Scully was glancing around, and thinking. There was a good chance that Greta would become distracted when she saw books: an opportunity to reach a phone. Where?

"A Salee," Greta pointed at the cardboard sign behind the dusty dark window display.

"A sale," Scully said. A closing sale. "Books for cheap."

The little girl ran up to the door, and pushed it in. Scully glanced around again. There would be a phone inside—there would have to be. She knew that. She was just hoping for something out of Greta's earshot. The small petals twirled about her on the breeze, offering nothing but silence between the rush of passing cars back on the road. Scully sighed, and followed the girl.

A bell chimed when she stepped in, and an old man smiled at her from the counter.

"I'm hoping that's your little girl that just ran in here," he said, lowering his glasses to look Scully over. He sat, reclining in a chair behind the register with a newspaper opened.

"Yup," Scully nodded and glanced about.

There were aisles of short shelves, and masses of books proffered on tables in vague piles sorted by category of of 25 cent, 50 cent, and dollar. Greta had vanished into the dim depths of the store, and it was only by her soft croon "Ohh," that Scully figured out that she was in the dark far corner, under the label _Fiction._

"Are you traveling?" The man asked with lazy politeness.

"We are." Scully stepped closer, waiting for her sight to adjust, and studied the set up of his counter. Behind the man, under a multitude of notes pinned to a peg board, sat a corded phone. She listened for another sound from Greta, but heard only rustling. "Visiting an aunt in Pittsburgh," she said, careful to keep her voice even.

The man seemed as interested in that bit of information as he wound be in a bug that struck his window midflight. What was she to do? She couldn't say anything Greta might hear and find alarming. Pass him a note?

Scully stepped closer. "Are you Sam?"

"Olsen." The man's rampant dark eyebrows condensed into a scowl. "Sam's out in Florida, choosing between two beach-side condos that apparently offer a decadence of amenities." He bit his lip, catching his own bitter tone, and forced a smile. "If he offered you a bargain price on the back antiques, I can honor it. It would be a matter of a quick phone call."

Phone call. She did need one—just not to Sam. "I only asked because the man in the gas station down the road mentioned you have good books." She glanced over the counter, searching for a paper and pencil.

"Who? Oh—Ricky." The man chuckled. "He's a pea from my pod—doesn't like change any more than I do, I'd say. What sort of books are you looking to buy?"

More rustling came from the corner, and then Greta marched out. "These ones," she barked at the old man in her small authoritative bell voice. She pushed a tall stack onto his counter, and disappeared again. "To start," she called back as she disappeared into the dim.

Olsen arched his bushy caterpillars at Scully. "Got yourself a little scholar?"

"Sure do. She's voracious." Scully leaned over and tore a sheet off the legal pad by the man. Olsen frowned. She drew a finger to her lips, and lowered her hand to make a writing motion.

"And these ones," Greta said.

Scully flinched, and tucked the sheet back, over the counter's edge. Greta didn't notice. The little girl only dumped more books onto the already cluttered counter. There was barely room for them.

"What are you doing?" she demanded behind the towering pile. "Shouldn't you be putting them away into my buggy?"

The man sat up and glanced at Scully again. "Slow down there, sweetheart," he chuckled, but the sound was tight and tense. "How many are you set to read?"

"All the ones I want." Greta called back, disappearing into the next aisle.

Olsen picked up the sheet of paper Scully had pushed back toward him, and plucked a pencil from a glass by the register.

"We should bag these up," Scully said in a loud voice, and took the pencil, nodding at the man.

There was no room to write on the counter. She angled around and leaned the sheet on the smooth back of the register. Olsen stared at her with curious eyes, as he began to ring up prices.

"And these."

Scully tucked the note away when Greta popped out again with another load. "Won't you hurry?" She ordered, not asked. "Miss D—Mama, you should be taking these out while the man adds."

The girl disappeared into the aisles again. Scully pulled the note back up and scribbled as fast as she could.

"And these."

Scully tucked the note away again.

Greta halted, studying her. "What are you doing, Mama?"

Scully paled. "I'm just trying to keep track, sweetheart—this is a lot of books."

"Sale," the girl said. "Books for cheap." She dumped her third load atop the pile Olsen was working to clear, and zeroed in on Scully with her wide blue eyes. She looked comfortable in the dusty atmosphere of the shop. Only, her pupils had dilated and she licked her lips like she was thirsty. "Move them into the buggy, please."

The yellow scrap of legal pad paper stuck out at the side of the register. Greta stared at Scully. Olsen rang up the charge, keeping his gaze down.

Scully glanced at the numbers folding out on the register slot: 111.21.

"Why is it so much?" she gasped.

"I'm just keying in the prices," Olsen shrugged. "Your girl has good taste… We can take some items off, if you like."

"No," the girl barked at him. "No items off. I'm getting more, if you'd just add them, please." Her 'pleases' were tacked on like an afterthought to her small voice.

"Honey," Scully ventured, running her brain through the technicalities of her situation. She had eight hundred in checking—money for her next rent check. She didn't want to dip into her savings. "Greta, I have just eight hundred," she said. "I can't pay more that."

The girl bit her lip, thinking. She counted in her head while her lips moved. "Wait, wait," she rushed as Olsen rang up another tally. "Not that one. I'm still looking through."

She disappeared into the dim again, and Olsen glanced up at Scully. He didn't say anything, but his eyes were focused, gaging. He was ready to accept the situation, but unsure of how to read it. While the fingers of his right hand kept on striking keys on the register, he reached over with his left and pulled out the yellow sheet Scully had tucked away.

"Not these," Greta fumed and rounded into another aisle.

Scully flinched. The note was in the man's hand. She had to keep calm, and play along, if there was a chance—an opportunity. Olsen tucked the sheet down below the register and read it as he rang up more prices. Scully grabbed a few bundles he had piled into brown paper bags and walked them out to the car.

When she returned, the man's expression hadn't changed: it was set in a tense, tight smile. "Those are just magazines, sweetheart," he called to Greta's question, and nodded at Scully. "The paperbacks are on your left, around the corner."

Scully stepped up, noticing that the pile on the counter had been replenished, and grabbed off another load. Olsen gave her a nod, keeping his gaze locked on her. She walked out again. The petals twirled about her as she popped the trunk to load more books.

Six trips.

Scully made six trips.

By the seventh, the register hung at 798.00, and Greta was tossing books off the bargain tables. The car had been packed to a limit where the back windshield couldn't be seen in the rearview.

Olsen glanced at Scully as the bell tinged, and then the three stood in silence. Little Greta stared at her options, her body trembling. "I have four 2 dollars, five 50 cents, and seven 25 cents," she breathed. "I can't decide. I can't decide."

Her shivers grew spastic. Her dark curls were tangled, all over the place and covered in dust. They blocked her small face. "I want all of them," she screamed, stomping her foot. "I want all of them."

Scully rushed to her side and bent over the girl. "We have a lot. We have—"

Scully froze, biting her lip back against a cry of shock. The little girl's face had—deteriorated. Violent, bulging veins had broken across her smooth baby forehead, and her skin had turned gray. Her lips moved awkwardly—the very flesh petrifying as she spoke. She was disintegrating; that was the only thought Scully's mind could form. Greta was dying on the spot. The little girl turned and ducked against Scully's hip. "I can't decide," she whispered.

Scully could have—she could have stayed right there. She could have let it all play out. The girl was seizing. She was shaking. She was weak and burying her little face into the denim of Scully's jeans.

If Scully had let it play out…

She couldn't. It was a little girl.

Scully grabbed the back of her shoulders beneath the wash of tangled dark curls, and rushed her toward the door. "Enough for now," she whispered. "Get in the car. I'll settle up."

Greta rushed over to passenger's door, her pink skirt rustling in the tide of white petals. Scully turned to Olsen and stretched out her bank card.

"Ask for Skinner?" he said.

Scully nodded. It should have been a victory—another opportunity to explain. Scully only took her card back with the receipt, and the last bag, and then she slipped out into the sunlight. Why? She didn't know. Her limps moved with more care, and her intuition focused on the girl—a little seven-year-old-girl.

Scully slipped in behind the wheel, and looked over to the passenger's seat. "Christ," she breathed.

Veins had cracked all over Greta's little body, her neck, arms, and legs. She had turned white, scratched up by maroon lines. She rasped against the window like an animal that was trapped inside. Her skin burst with lesions popping, skin bursting on her small arms, laced in a dark black pus.

"Greta," Scully said. "I'm going to drive us to a hospital, alright?"

The girl shook her head with a spasm. "Home. Now," she croaked. "House. Back to house."

"Greta—"

"Back to house!" She'd meant to scream the words, but they came out a hiss. "Now," she whispered, leaning against the seat. "I thought it was six hours…" Greta rolled her neck against the felt. "It might be less… I never tried…"

Scully floored the accelerator.

She could have stalled. The note she'd left in Olsen's hands had her badge number and a direct line to Skinner with as much location as she could muster: Dead Road between Struthers and Springfield. Scully could have stalled.

She floored the gas back to the T-intersection with the forbidding stop-sign. Greta gasped beside her, skin popping. The books rattled in the backseat.

"Faster," Greta whispered. "Faster, faster."

Her little chest pumped in rapid tempo.

Scully lurched around a slower car ahead. Greta turned her chin against the seat, and her blue eyes pleaded. Despite everything, Scully couldn't resist them. Veins popped all over the little girl's little face, squeezing her eyelids.

"Almost there," Scully whispered, despite herself.

They rounded the stop-sign bidding them to keep ahead. _Dead Road._ The green cornfields rustled into view. Greta shot up and drew a breath like fish thrown back into the ocean. The veins on her body melted away and vanished. Color—the faint peach—returned to her cheeks.

"Thanks," she panted, and glanced back at the pile of books on the back-seat.

"Sure." Scully bit her lip and stared ahead. With any hope, Olsen would have placed the call by now.

Greta tapped her fingers on the console.

Out ahead, far too early for the sight of the green farmhouse, a man stumbled toward them—a man with a stained shirt and a melted face.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The man with the melted face burst out of the sunlight like a scream-trigger in a horror movie.

Scully flinched and floored the brake. Her first thought was—Mulder. The man, though, wasn't him. He was a short man with a crop of blonde hair, and when he spotted the car—however he could have through the congealed mash his face had been reduced to—he sprang into a limping run, avoiding the vehicle.

"Stupid Nina!" Greta cried and slammed a small fist on the console.

Scully arched back as the man ran past their car and down the road. His shirt fluttered in the breeze, and though he was still stumbling, sometimes almost falling over, he was legging it for dear life.

If he made it to the town, then, surely, he would alert authorities about what was going on, at least by his condition alone.

"Don't bother with him," Greta slumped back into her seat. "He was a nuisance anyway. Back to house. I want to read my new books."

Scully glanced at her. How was she not alarmed by the escapee? The veins had vanished on the little girl's skin, and her lesions had disappeared as well, but Greta seemed—tired. Sapped.

"Go on!" Her bell voice ordered. "Move the buggy!"

The books blocked sight of the man in the rearview. "My legs are tired," Scully said, opening the car-door. "I just need to stretch them for a minute."

"Well, hurry!" The girl seemed alarmed, but she was still panting, and no sharp pain stung into Scully's temple.

Scully stepped out and stared after the man. He bolted, in jerky motions, for the stop-sign still visible in the far distance. He picked up speed as though his muscles were waking up. In a minute, he was sprinting. In an another, he rushed like a practiced marathon runner.

And then, when he leapt into the T of the crossroads, he vanished.

On the breeze.

A gray puff burst through the air, scattering ash. Scully gasped and clasped her hand to her mouth. How? How?

"Are you done?" Greta called from the passenger's seat. "I want to go back to the house—now. The knife is right where I left it, don't you remember?" Her tone grew shrill.

Scully ducked back into the driver's seat. She had no choice—not with Mulder trapped back in the house. She leaned on the accelerator and pulled up the road, deeper into the lush green cornfields.

How? Who was that man? Scully thought about the conversation she had with Sue, who claimed to have last remembered a date in the fifties, but looked no older than twenty-five. She thought about all the people at the Masquerade ball. She considered Greta's tentative question in the stuffy library—the question that hinted her to offer the girl a trip to the books store: _In your car, do you have any books?_

"Greta?" Scully bit her lip as they sped past the corn. "What happened to all the other cars?"

"Hm?" Greta seemed agitated. "What? I don't know—they were useless, so I threw them away."

How? How could she 'throw them away?' She was a little girl. Who actually moved them? Where did they go?

The farmhouse loomed into view across the tops of corn stalks under the perpetually blue crisp sky, and Scully leaned on the brake. Greta sat up in her seat and frowned—an angry furrow.

The house was a mayhem of bodies crawling and stumbling all over the place—out of the windows, running through the corn.

"Stop!" Greta ordered.

Scully was leaning on the brake, but suddenly, she didn't have to: the car died on the spot, coughing and jerking the way it had when Mulder and she first stalled on the road.

Greta flew out of the door, and Scully rushed to follow her. The little girl marched up the road to the house. All around, heads were bobbing through the thick stalks, wandering off in all directions. The few that were still close, turned to Scully with melted, illegible faces, and then moved faster away. Up the driveway, she saw more bodies—ones that were amputated, with limps missing, cleanly like they had been plucked out. The bodies crawled out of the basement windows. More were lurching away from the stump on which Scully had seen Jimmy chopping wood.

When they cleared, Scully saw the maid. Her hands had been nailed to the stump with long, curling nails, but no blood fled out of her flesh.

"Miss Greta," Nina lisped when saw the girl stomp toward her, "I tried to stop them, but I can't. They all got loose—all of them."

"You are so stupid, Nina," Greta yelled. "You had one task—one chore to do!" She walked up to the stump and tore the nails out of the maid's hand in sharp easy motions, like she was plucking up dandelions.

Scully glanced around. The backs of heads ventured deeper into the corn all around. A man with only one arm intact made his persistent way toward the green; his face was melted, and so was his neck and shoulder. He crawled like a wingless insect in desperate need to make sense of his redefined anatomy. Scully felt sweat break on her neck, nausea bubbling. She wanted to rush over to help, but she held still. Self-preservation powered through, and self-preservation included Mulder. Where was Mulder? Still upstairs and unconscious?

Greta backed up as the maid stood and rubbed her torn-up hands. Her half-melted lips twisted into a grin. "Burn them," she hissed to the little girl. "Burn them all."

Greta backed up and scoured the tops of the corn, watching the disappearing heads. "Stop!" she screamed.

No one moved. If anything, some ran faster. Greta clenched her fists and licked her lips. "Stop!" she screamed again.

Scully looked her over. The little girl was still panting. She was still pale—she was weakened.

Then, out of the stalks, one man turned about and rushed toward the little girl. He was a big man—the biggest of the crowd scattering through the corn—and he ran on sure, fast, muscular limbs. He dashed across the cleared driveway and grabbed Greta by the neck.

It happened in a flash.

He grabbed the little girl with both hands around her throat, and he jerked her up into the air. Greta's shiny black shoes dangled above the dirt. Scully lurched, on instinct—on pure defending reflex at seeing a large man dangling a seven-year-old girl by her throat. She lunged and found that she couldn't move her feet.

Ahead, the pair froze. The man had the little girl hoisted on the stretch of his bulging muscles. Greta lifted her arms and spread them like wings.

The sky burned up into a sunset. The cornfields flickered and were reduced to a stretch of dry, dead earth. Scully glanced up at the house and saw it broken: the chipped green siding turned gray and torn, the porch—a collapsed mess, the roof—caved in into a black hole. The wind howled.

Everybody in the emptied field halted their escape—bodies stilled mid-movement. Ahead, by the chopping stump, Nina giggled. The man let go of the little girl's neck, stumbled back, and she rose higher, like a balloon, her arms out-stretched.

She turned, in the air, against the setting sun, facing Scully in the process. Scully couldn't move her eyes away from the sight. She couldn't move at all. Greta's dark curls billowed in a black halo, reflecting the gold and rose of the sunset. Her wide blue eyes—they weren't blue anymore. They were red lid-to-lid—a crimson wash under her young lashes.

"You don't," Greta said in a voice that wasn't hers, "You don't touch my pretty." The voice came out harsh, rasping, laced with an accent that Scully hadn't heard on Greta before. "You do as she says." The little lips moved against the beat of the dying sun.

The girl seized, midair, and started to tremble, shaking all over. She widened her jaw and hornets—buzzing insects—poured out like an army out of her mouth, screeching along the bare blank fields. The people—the melted people—screamed, batting away the swarming insects. A few kept running. Most turned back to the broken farmhouse.

Greta shook midair, seizing from every small limb like a doll that was being rattled. Apart from the wind hurling across the stretch of no-man's-land, and the screech of insect wings, only the sound of the maid giggling by the chopping stump could be heard. Scully couldn't move as she watched the melted bodies crawl back into the house. She couldn't move a muscle.

The bodies all vanished, one way or another. The few that didn't turn back exploded on the breeze in a puff of ash. Greta froze midair, and then she collapsed into a tiny pile of pink dress, clutching her knees to her chest. The sky flickered over in blue, for a moment: a second of blue with white cotton clouds, and then it returned to the sunset colors. The corn stayed. It returned, rustling in the orange wash with thick stalks that had vanished moments back. Nina ran over to Greta and plucked her up.

"Miss Dana," the girl muttered, relenting into the groove of the maid' arm. "Will you get my books?"

Scully felt her sandal strike the rocks of the driveway. She stumbled forward out of her paralysis. She glanced back, but couldn't see the car between the re-erected corn.

"Just get them please, Miss Dana," Greta called as the maid ushered the girl up the porch.

The burn of the sunset lingered on Scully's cheek. The girl and Nina vanished into the farmhouse which now looked green and chipped as ever. Scully stared all around, breathing slow, and then she noticed, for the first time in the commotion, the figure of Sue standing a distance away.

"She bought more books?" Sue asked in a quiet, calm tone. She fingered the leaf of a cornstalk beside her. The lingering orange light bathed the woman's short blonde curls in tangerine, blocking the melted half of her face.

"Yes, I…" Scully stepped closer. "What happened here?"

"A suicide break," Sue said, keeping her gaze on the leaf, rubbing it between her fingers. "It's happened before. She throws a tantrum… This one wasn't that bad… She seemed weak. What happened?" She turned and faced Scully with her drawn-on cartoon eye.

"Nothing—we went out down the road."

Sue stepped closer. "Past the stop-sign? What happened to her?"

Scully swallowed. Hopefully, Olsen had called—hopefully, Skinner was aware of their location. Hopefully, all of this was about to be wrapped up in the logic of law and a swat team.

"She—she started… to die."

Sue stepped closer. "And you didn't let her?"

Scully bit her lip. "She's—she's just a little girl."

The sun melted into the horizon, and a stain of violet and rose washed over the sky. The air darkened. Sue's cartoon eye caught a glint of the lingering, reflecting rays.

"She isn't a little girl. And you didn't let her die when you had the chance."

"I—"

Sue nodded. "It's not your fault." She brushed back a lock of her short blonde hair. "I didn't run when I had the chance for the very same reason: you have a man here with you."

Scully glanced back up at the house and only saw black and lifeless windows. She worried about Mulder, but it was not the kind of worry that Sue implied: they weren't newlyweds on a trip back from a honeymoon. They were—partners.

"It's all the same," Sue said. "I can tell. He's fine, just so you know."

"Mulder?" Scully zeroed in on the blonde. "How do you know? There was a knife—"

Sue chuckled. "Oh, of course. She likes that trick. You can just move the knife, you know. As long as you do it when she's not paying attention, you can leave it in a place where it will slice a corner of the floor when it comes down, and she'll just forget that she meant to kill somebody who's still alive."

Scully studied the woman. "How long have you been here?"

The dying light caught Sue's curls before exposing a dome of a star-lit sky.

"Longer than Nina," Sue said. "I never left."

Scully frowned. "Nina—the maid. Why is she her number-two?"

Sue shrugged. "Nina… Stockholm-ed in a matter of days. That'd happened before, but never to that extreme. Nina wants to kill us all. Most of the people from the trunk want to kill her more than the girl."

The trunk?

A cool breeze washed in, bidden by the settled night. Scully struggled to focus on Sue's face in the gathering darkness.

The scratch of tires agitated up the driveway and Scully jumped. Sue remained still, staring right into the headlights. Scully thought it would be a government-ordained vehicle—Skinner's orders, but when she squinted against the bright flash, she only saw a worn pick-up with teenagers drinking cans in the bed of the car.

"Billy!" A young girl flew out of the passenger's seat. "I don't want to be here! It's so creepy! You never listen!"

The girl stumbled a bit and glanced all about, even at Scully.

Scully stepped forward. "Hi," she began. "I'm—"

Sue drew her back. "They won't hear you," Sue said in her soft quiet voice.

"What?" Scully watched the teenagers pile out of the truck-bed without a second glance in her direction.

"You were lost, right?" Sue said. "You and your partner."

"Yes."

"That's the only way to find the place." Sue pulled Scully's arm back as a boy hopped off the bed and rushed past them like they weren't standing there. He laughed at a joke his friend cracked, and at the girl who was reluctant to follow.

"Let's see how haunted this place really is," he called.

"Locals," Sue said to Scully. "They already know this is a dead road. They don't see what you see."

"What will happen when they go in the house?"

Sue chuckled. "Usually, it's a good time. She likes the teen kids, and she puts on a show. Let's go see." She urged Scully toward the house, after the kids.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"Billy," the teenage girl cried as the group of kids climbed the porch steps. "Billy, there was a car out on the road. Someone could already be in here."

The boy downed the contents of his beer can, scrunched it and tossed it over the railing. "Probably some moron ran out of gas on the dead stretch. That car could have been there for weeks, Jeannie."

The stars of the cloudless sky lit up the porch, as a moon climbed slowly out from behind the house. Sue and Scully followed the teenagers, watching. They pushed in through the door.

"I can't see shit," a boy complained. "Who's got a flashlight?"

"Damn—I didn't think about that."

Sue and Scully stepped into what Scully had only seen as a lavish foyer before. Now, an odd quality edged the inside of the house: the walls were both the foyer bathed in candlelight, and a decayed shabby interior with torn and rotten wallpaper submerged in darkness. The walls flickered with the duality, like spastic television screens, but the teenagers didn't seem to be seeing the house Scully and Sue were in. One of the boys flicked a lighter and held it up, trying to shine light on the old wall-paper of an abandoned farmhouse. The girl, Jeannie, edged up to Billy, digging her nails into his arm and looking all around in terror.

Greta rounded the corner. "Miss Dana, did you—"

She halted and studied the scene. The teenagers couldn't see her any more than they could see Sue or Scully. They stared around like the gang from Scooby Doo. Greta stepped closer and looked them over.

Scully felt Sue brush past behind her, and saw her duck into the corner, behind a plant.

"Who is this?" Greta asked Scully.

"I don't know," Scully said honestly. "They just came up the driveway."

"Oh," Greta's shoulders relaxed. "Spook-seekers."

The teenagers ventured deeper into the house in a close huddle, the boy in the lead shining the lighter out in front of them. Greta backed up to give them room.

"Go get the books, Miss Dana," the little girl said. "I'll chase them out."

Scully stepped back, keeping her eyes on the scene. She wanted to see what would happen.

"Oh, creepy…" Billy said. The wash of the lighter fell onto a molded armoire.

Scully saw it, in the flickering duality of the wall. The wall was both a stretch of cream plaster, and a broken display of wood shelves. The doors of the armoire had fallen off. On the shelves, sat a collection of dolls, old, covered in cobwebs. Most of the doll faces had been melted—plastic from the looks of them. The light of the lighter drew closer to their featureless heads, and Scully saw, over the boy's shoulder, that new features had been drawn on the dolls in markers. It was… a toy display of the people in the house.

"Go get the books, Miss Dana," Greta said again. Her tone rang with a re-discovered strength. Scully felt a sharp pang at her temple.

"I'm going, I'm going." She turned and walked back toward the front door.

She glanced at Sue in the corner. Greta hadn't noticed Sue's presence, and the blonde woman huddled now, watching the scene with a curious enjoyment—as though all that was missing was a bag of popcorn for her to snack on.

Scully stepped out onto porch, feeling the sharp pain leave her temple as suddenly as it came. She sighed and walked down the porch steps and past the teenagers' pick-up truck. It seemed like she'd been in this house for an eternity, and with no break of logic in sight. Scully glanced at the pick-up.

The kids had left the keys in the ignition. Scully halted and stared at them. What's to stop her from hopping behind the wheel and gunning it back to town?

Mulder… She sighed again and glanced up at the house. Somewhere, he was somewhere inside, at the mercy of that knife frozen midair.

Scully walked past the truck and down to the road where their rental car had died out once again. She opened the door and gathered as many bags in her hands as she could. She noticed the pretzels and water she'd bought at the gas station. Sue had said that they didn't need to eat, but the hunger that had come over her when she'd pulled away from the Dead Road stop-sign—it had been so intense. Scully thought it over, and left the pretzels in the car. There was a better chance of them staying right where they were in the car. The house didn't seem to obey any common laws of space.

Scully trudged back up to the house, hoisting her load of books. Just as she passed the truck again, screams erupted from the house. She almost dropped the bags; her reflex was to run in and help.

Then the teenagers flew out of the door, tripping over each other, and hollering. They ran and scrambled into the truck. Billy revved the engine and floored it in reverse even as the girl was still struggling to climb into the passenger's side. Ahead, out of the opened farmhouse door, flew out—

Scully stared.

It was little Greta. Only she looked white as a sheet and her hair was frizzy and gray. Her little dress was reduced to rags, and her small face—the features of it had distorted. The eyes were wide and black like a scull's sockets, and out of her lips came a screech so piercing and shrill, it bellowed like a siren.

Greta rushed through the air with her arms out-stretched toward the teenagers. Scully turned as the little girl flew past her and watched the truck with the kids still screaming back up, and speed away. In their hurry, they had backed into the agents' sedan, knocking the bumper off.

Despite everything—despite the whole nightmarish nonsense of her situation—the first thought that flashed across Scully's mind was: Damn it, that's a rental!

Greta came down to the ground, laughing. She turned, suddenly looking the same as ever: a pretty little girl in a pink dress with big blue eyes and long dark curls. The moonlight bathed her lovingly.

"Baba liked to scare kids, too," she said to Scully as she walked back up the road. "And then she would laugh and laugh…" Greta looked down at the bags of books Scully was holding. "Oh, good. Just put them in the hall by the stairs."

"Greta," Scully ventured. "What about the story? The one we were playing?" She needed to see Mulder.

"Oh, don't worry. I didn't forget." Greta glanced up at the stars. "The next part of the story happens at night—a beautiful star-filled summer night just like this one… You'll see. Bring in all the books, please," she called over her shoulder as she walked to the porch.

Scully studied the starlight dome over the seemingly endless wash of cornfields. Well, at least the prospect of speaking to Mulder seemed imminent. She turned and lugged her heavy load toward the house.

It took her another six trips to get all the books inside. Sue had disappeared somewhere, and so had Greta. Scully figured the girl had taken a few of her new purchases to the library. The melted people were nowhere in sight, not even the maid. When Scully dumped the last load onto the pile, she glanced around, feeling uncertain.

What now? Check the library and ask the little girl? That seemed stupid—any opportunity to act a free agent was a good opportunity. Scully edged toward the stairwell, keeping her steps as quiet as she could. Mulder was probably still upstairs. Sue said the knife could be moved.

Just as she lifted a foot onto the first step, Scully caught a familiar flash out the corner of her eye: red and blue lights. Police.

Her heart sped up, and she rushed toward the front door, out onto the porch, and down the road. A police cruiser had pulled up to their rental, and turned on their signal lights upon sight of the car. Scully flew out of the corn, announcing herself immediately.

"Agent Scully, FBI. Officers—" She paused. Like the teenagers, the two uniformed cops that climbed out of their car didn't even turn to the sound of her voice. They couldn't see her.

The driver, and older man, spoke into his radio. "Yup, it's right here. License number Juliet Bravo Charlie727, just like they said."

The other officer neared the agents' rental, shining his flashlight through the windows. "Nothing in here, Bill… oh—I've got two badges, FBI issue, lying open in the front seat."

"Two FBI badges discovered in the vehicle," the older cop spoke into the radio.

"Any indications as to the present circumstances of the agents?" A woman's voice crackled in response.

The older officer glanced around at the fields. The younger opened the driver's door and popped the hood. It was empty. Scully had just removed all the books that had been there.

"None from the vehicle," the cop spoke into the radio. "Four days," he said to his partner. "They would have had time to walk to town."

Four days? Scully clasped her hand to her mouth.

The younger man stared up the road at the farmhouse.

"We're going in for a recon on a residential," Bill told the radio. "Doesn't look promising, though, Judy. It's just the abandoned house on the road."

"Copy that," she crackled through.

The officers walked past Scully, a foot away from her. She reached out to tap the older officer on the shoulder, and when her fingertips brushed his uniform, she cried out—a sharp pain shot through her hand.

"What is it?" the younger man asked as the officer flinched and faltered.

"Hm?" He shook his head. "Nothing. I just felt… like a chill or something."

His partner chuckled. "You know what they say about the place, Bill. It's filled with ghosts."

The older man scowled, seeming a bit embarrassed. "Nonsense, Maloney—kiddie scary stories."

Scully followed the cops up the road, rubbing her stung hand.

The duality on the walls had vanished. Scully walked after the officers into an old, abandoned farmhouse. They shone their flashlights over everything, but with a rapid comfort that transmitted familiarity. The men had clearly been at the house before. They were confident with the layout. They opened every door downstairs, walked upstairs, and opened every door there. Scully peered over their shoulders each time, seeing only empty rooms, and some scattered, broken, and rotted furniture. Her bedroom—the room in which she had woken up to embroidered pillows, lay caved in by the damaged roof. The master bedroom was as she had seen it: sheltering a bed with a groove of an old woman's body, and the old black and white photograph sitting bedside. The windows were nailed shut.

The younger officer, Maloney, walked up to the picture, shining his flashlight. "No dust on it still," he said. "That you have to admit is a little spooky."

Bill grunted. "Let's just wrap this up."

Scully followed them back downstairs. Mulder was nowhere to be found, like everyone and everything else she knew to be in the house. Even the stairs weren't the banister construction, but rather a simple set of curved steps with patches of moldy, fleeced-away carpet. The officers checked out the basement—a concrete barren space, and then they walked back out onto the rickety porch.

That couldn't be it. They couldn't just stop.

Scully followed them, not knowing what else she could do to prove—to communicate to them, and via them to Skinner, that she and Mulder were out here.

"Can you hear me?" she tried again, getting no response.

"Zero on the house," Bill spoke into his radio as the cops walked back toward their flashing red and blue vehicle.

"Copy that," the woman's voice crackled. "I've got the FBI on the line. They're asking you to verify whether or not the car is in running condition."

Scully followed the men.

"Keys are in the ignition," Bill said into the radio, and cranked the engine. It screeched, huffed, and died out again. "Zero on the car."

"Copy that."

"Do you want us to get a tow-truck out here, Judy?"

There was a long pause on the radio. Maloney chuckled for some reason.

"What?" Bill asked his partner, seeming irritated.

The younger man shrugged. "You know how the towers are around here. You practically have to bed one to get him to come out to Dead Road. It's their bad-luck road."

"Would you ease off on the local shit?" Bill barked. "This is an FBI matter—a federal matter. I don't want us to come off like a bunch of yokel assholes."

"Uh," the radio crackled, "That's a negative. They've got their own on the way."

"Copy that," Bill said and sighed, releasing the button. "That's a wrap, Maloney." He stared back at the farmhouse and rubbed the shoulder where Scully had tried to tap him. "Let's get on. I'm trying to pull back on overtime this week. The wife's in a mood…"

Scully stared as they trekked back to their car.

"Beth? Your sweet homemaker from a forgotten time?"

"Yeah… Tommy's changing majors again, and she…" Their voices died away as they clapped the doors shut.

"Wait!" Scully screamed. That couldn't be it! "Wait!" She ran after the police cruiser as it pulled away, the flashing blue and red lights turned off.

They sped away. She stopped on the silent country road, swallowed by the night, and grabbed her head. It's alright, she said to herself. It's alright. She'd heard the woman: FBI was bringing their own…

In the back of her mind, a dark voice whispered: what's to say Skinner himself would be able to see her? What's to say anything would be different when they came?

She pushed the thought away and turned back to the house. Mulder—right now she just needed to get to him.

Scully walked up to the porch and into—… a lavish candlelit foyer. Record player music could be heard within, but no one was in sight. Scully walked up to the banister stairwell and stared at the pile of books she had dumped. The music came from down the hall, but she didn't move toward it.

She rushed upstairs and into a hall that was long and lined with oak doors. Which one had she found him in? Scully ran, jerking every knob, and finding it locked until she traced her way around the hall to the door that had been her bedroom. It opened. The poster bed, laden with embroidered purple and green pillows, sat untouched across from the oak dresser. Scully stepped in, feeling her heart sink, feeling useless.

She turned, relenting to the fact that she would have to go down and speak to Greta, and then she saw the dress hanging on the back of her door. It was a mint-green summer dress, light, almost see-through. A note was tacked to the lace of the bodice.

Scully grabbed it and unwrapped it. The handwriting was the same as the note Greta had given her before.

 _It goes with your hair, don't you think?_

 _Your Gentleman is waiting for you in the arranged place: the gazebo in your garden._

Scully lurched toward the door, and then, she read the last line. Like a warning, it read:

 _I want this to be perfect._

She froze. Perfect. Mulder had warned her to play along. The maid had urged the girl to melt their faces. Scully had seen with her own eyes people—living breathing people—made featureless… _She throws a tantrum_ Sue's words came back to her…

It had to be perfect... What kind of nonsense cheesy romance was in the book? Scully had no experience with Harlequin romance novels. She bit her lip, thinking. There was a risk that if they didn't act it out, correctly, the girl would get mad. Scully didn't want to accept it, but there was a chance that if the girl got mad, they would be in real danger.

There was, too, the fact that Greta had disappeared into her library. Her new collection was distracting her.

Put on the dress, Scully decided. That was a good show of compliance—a good first step.

She tossed off her gray t-shirt and jeans and slipped into the mint thing. It fell well—she could still move easily, not like when she was stuck in the frilly ball gown. She glanced out of the window where she had seen the gazebo before, but the glass offered a black sheet against the candlelight that emanated from no actual candles. Scully tossed Greta's note on the bed and walked back downstairs.

No one met her on the way. The house was silent; only the record player's tune tricked through.

Scully slipped out of the front door and rounded the house. She had ditched her sandals, and her bare feet arched against the rocks until they found the cool moist short grass of the backyard. The backyard was bathed with the light of the house's windows, illuminating the gazebo where—

Mulder. She recognized the back of his head right away. Her throat lurched. The scene was too familiar to when she had first met Sue. As Scully rounded the gazebo's railing, she pleaded, pleaded that his face would be intact.

She climbed the gazebo's creaking steps. Mulder flinched at the sound and stood. Moonlight fell on the side of his face that the orange wash of the house had covered. He looked just the same—everything there.

Scully rushed up. "Mul—"

He grabbed her to him, jerked her close, and wrapped his lips over hers.

The kiss was warm, eager. Scully faltered. His scent—his familiar scent—washed over her, curling her toes.

For a second, a moan climbed up in her, and she almost let it escape, before she came to her senses and pushed him off. "Jesus, Mulder what the h—"

A smile tugged at the corner of his lip, and then he pulled her back to his chest. "Shush," he whispered in her ear. "I read the book."

Scully tensed.

"It's just the one kiss, and then you're supposed to slap me."

"What?" she breathed. Too much was pulsing through her body from his closeness. She felt confused.

"Slap me," he urged.

Scully pulled away and glanced at the house. Every window was lit up. She could feel being watched. She drew back her hand and slapped her partner clean across the cheek.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Mulder blinked and shook his head. "Wow, you really put your arm into that."

"Sorry," Scully whispered. Tense exhaustion had driven her palm with pure adrenaline.

Mulder grabbed her wrist and pulled her close again. His movements were stark—like he was forcing her, but his touch was soft, careful. He leaned down to her ear.

"This is the part where I'm supposed to run some line about how I have to have you," he whispered in a rushed voice. "The man in the trunk said that she expects it—it's in the book—and that while we stand this way, we can talk freely."

"The trunk?" Scully whispered back. Mulder's fingers slid down her wrist.

"Have you seen the bodies?"

"Yes."

"They've been here for decades—decades, Scully. The oldest remembers the twenties and talks like he's from that time, too."

"I know," she said. "There was a woman. She said nineteen-fifty-seven, but she looked so young, Mulder."

His fingers tensed on her lower back. He urged her away from the gazebo railing and into the shadow laced with moonlight, away from the peach candlelit wash of the house windows. Scully's hand slipped down the velvet dusty jacket he had on. They remained close, whispering.

"Mulder, I passed a note. Skinner knows where we are—where our car is."

"When? To whom?"

"Owner of a bookstore out past Springfield road. The local law-enforcement was here not twenty minutes back, but Mulder—they can't see us. I was standing right next to them."

He nodded and leaned closer. "The people in the trunk said that's how it goes. They described so many others coming through the house and seeing nothing—teenagers, police, even people appraising the property, considering buying it, but every time, the visitors got a bad feeling and drove away."

Scully bit her lip. "Mulder, our car was running, and now it's dead again. I think we can walk it—the town isn't close, but its close enough."

His fingers on her arm tensed, clenching. "Don't. She can tell. She senses everything that happens on the property. Everyone has tried to walk away at one point or another. They die… at best."

The orange wash of the house's windows flickered, and the record player's music trickled out across the grass as though a door had been opened somewhere to release the sound. Mulder urged Scully back into the light, and drew her close again.

"She's older than a hundred, Scully," he whispered. "The man told me. You and I are trapped in a parallel dimension created by a gipsy's magic. The girl had a great-grandmother—"

"Baba," Scully said automatically.

Mulder tensed. "What?"

"Baba. That's what Greta calls her."

"Scully… You're not Stockholm-ing on me, are you?"

"What? That's ridiculous. Muld—"

"There was a woman here," he cut her off. "A nurse named Nina. She was driving up to Cleveland, to a new children's hospital where she was transferring, when she got stranded. The people in the trunk say that she fell under the girl's finger in a second. She lost her mind."

"Mulder, I'm not Stockholm-ing. I just want to get out of here—I want us both to get out of here."

His eyes caught the glint of the orange wash as he studied her, pressing her close. Scully felt his fingers play the lace at her lower back. "They say we can, but they say it has to happen fast—within two weeks tops, as the man phrased it. I'm not sure why."

"Hunger," Scully breathed.

"What?"

The memory of the pain in her stomach washed over her. "Hunger."

He shook his head. "I haven't felt hungry since I've—"

"And you won't," she leaned into his warm touch. "But it's there. Mulder, I think our bodies are stranded. I think we're dehydrated and losing nourishment by the second, but we can't tell. When I went out onto Springfield road, the pain—"

She froze. The record-player music blared.

Mulder drew closer, his lips almost brushing her ear, "Listen to me—we have to play this out: this is the part where you reject me and walk away, but then we elope and get married—in the book. So, right now, you have to walk away."

Scully's fingertips brushed his velvet sleeve. Walk away? She had been trying to get to Mulder this whole time—four days apparently, according to the cop. She didn't want to walk away. She wanted to grab him and run down the road.

"Walk away," he whispered again.

Scully saw a little figure walking toward them across the grass. Mulder nudged her back with fingers that were both forceful and lingering on her arm. She obeyed their urge and walked out of the gazebo. She glanced back when she heard a rustle: Mulder had hopped over the railing and disappeared in the wall of corn.

"Mademoiselle," Greta called, walking toward Scully in a poufy blue dress she was struggling to track through the grass. "You have abandoned us, and our card game simply fell apart. What are you doing out here?"

Greta seemed distracted, but she said the words like she was reciting them. She was reenacting the plot of the book, Scully realized.

"Just admiring the stars," she improvised.

Greta smiled, pleased. "Well, you shouldn't on a summer's night," the girl hurried. "The stars may give you hope that isn't there to be had."

What was the next line? Scully hadn't read the book.

Greta stepped closer, and placed her delicate small hand on Scully's arm. "Desiree, may I be frank with you?"

Desiree… Ok. Scully bit her lip, still glancing at the corn. "Yes…of course."

"He's not the man for you," Greta widened her eyes.

"He? Mul—Duke Harrington?"

Greta nodded and her little face took on a solemn expression. "Have we not been close friends for all of our lives, Desiree?"

Scully nodded, unsure.

"Well then, you will have to hear this from me, painful as it is: Richard is promised—to another."

Greta hesitated, staring up at Scully. Her little blue eyes were so urgent, so expectant. The orange lights of the house bathed them across the cropped grass. Scully didn't know—she didn't know what she was supposed to do. Mulder was gone, and she was back in the little girl's grasp. She was so sick of it.

Then, out of nowhere, like an irritating loose hair, a mood flew over her, and she— clasped the back of her wrist to her forehead.

"Promised to another?" she cried with maybe a bit too much of a dramatic flair, and collapsed right there on the grass.

"Oh, Desiree," the girl rushed over.

The grass was cold, sharp, moist. And then, Scully's cheek brushed the embroidery of a pillow.

She woke to the sound of Mulder laughing.

"What?" she squinted in the dark. He was close on her—she could smell him.

"Shh," he hissed, still chuckling. "You were so funny."

"What's funny about this?" she hissed back and felt his fingers on her hip.

"Sorry," he breathed. "You were good. We have to get out of here. Now."

"How?"


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

He drew a finger to his lips, and helped Scully off the bed.

They slipped out into the hall, the darkness around them quiet, dust-filled, and still. Scully could feel being watched and the feeling prickled the hairs on the back of her neck. They walked down the stairwell, seeing no one, and walked out onto the porch. The night was black as before, the moon full and round over the cornstalks. Only the wind chimes made a soft ting on the breeze.

Mulder nudged her elbow, and she followed him around the house, wondering where he was headed. The road behind them was the only road around. Ahead, lay only the endless corn. When they rounded the porch side, Scully frowned. Something was missing from the scene, but Scully couldn't figure out what. The stump on which Jimmy had been splitting logs stood in the wash of moonlight. She looked away, wondering if her mind was starting to slip.

"Mulder, where are we going?" she whispered.

"Eloping," he whispered back.

"What?"

He glanced at the house that stood silent, watchful, the very windows seeming to be tracing their steps.

"She wants us to run off during this part—it's part of the plot of that cheesy novel. I think we've got an easy out, Scully. We haven't been here longer than two weeks. All we have to do is elope. When we get to town—"

"Mulder, the car's dead. Did you want to walk it? We should at least get water…"

He urged her across the grass of the backyard, past the gazebo. "There's a motorcycle, hidden in the corn," he whispered. "A man from the house told me. He got it to run without the girl knowing. He told me how to find it."

Ahead of them, the stalks rustled in the moonlight. The agents slipped out of the peach wash of the house and into the whispering rows of corn. Scully followed Mulder who counted his steps as they walked. After a hundred paces, when the house fell away behind them, and only the moon hung above, he turned right. The breeze picked up, but the silence was dead—not even bugs could be heard. Cutting across the rows, instead of walking along them, proved harder, and Scully struggled against the flapping stalks, following Mulder until, suddenly, she collided against his back.

"Mul—"

"Shh," he hissed.

His shoulders tensed. She angled around to see what had startled him, and a chill washed over her.

To their right, down the row of corn stalks, a figure stood with her back turned, facing the house in the far distance. It was Nina—the maid. Moonlight washed over her hair which had come undone in jagged, frizzed tufts. The far-off peach lights of the house's windows edged her tall, lanky frame. She stood, heaving, her shoulders rising and falling, like a rabid animal's. She turned slowly, moonlight washing over a bizarre smile on her melted face.

In her hand, she held an axe—the axe from the chopping stump.

The agents stared at her. Everything seemed still for a moment. The axe glittered in the moonlight, sharp, the handle long. The maid raised the weapon, stretching her smile wider. They stared at her, thinking maybe it was another hallucination—a waking nightmare… and then she sprinted toward Mulder and Scully.

"Oh, shi—"

Mulder thrust Scully back into the stalks and jumped out into the row. The maid screeched, speeding up. She flew on him. Mulder ducked the swing, and lunged against her stomach, meaning to knock her back onto the ground, but she barely budged. Mulder tumbled backward instead. The maid curled out of the swing and arched her arms back. The axe flew down toward Mulder.

Scully was already moving as she registered all this. She lunged between Mulder and the maid. She threw her hands up to stop the descending weapon. She grabbed the handle, her eyes locked on the deranged woman's melted face. The force—Scully was strong—but the force...Scully's knees quaked and bent under the pressure. She struggled to jerk the axe out of the maid's hands, but her own fingers only slipped.

The maid's hair billowed about her, gray strands in the moonlight. She exploded with hysterical laughter, as Scully struggled to push the axe away. The maid was so strong—too strong—her arms seemed like machinery. In desperation, Scully lunged forward and bit her on the wrist.

Scully gasped as her teeth and tongue struck what could only be—rotted flesh. Soft, disgusting, dripping in bile. Scully gagged and spat. How could this woman be so strong? Her flesh bent like mold-laced paper.

The maid laughed and drew her axe up again.

Mulder scrambled up.

"Run," he cried, pushing Scully into the stalks. The maid threw her head back, laughing. "Run!" he cried.

Scully ran, Mulder fast on her heels, pushing through the corn. They ran, leaping over clipped stalks, in no particular direction, with only the moon above, and the sound of screeching laughter in the corn around them.

All counted paces toward a hidden motorcycle were lost in the rush. The agents ran through the corn. The wind started to howl, masking the manic laughter. They ran until Mulder grabbed Scully back and ushered her down to the ground.

"Wait," he whispered.

They crouched against the stalks, listening. Wet mud lurched up between Scully's toes, slipping up her leg, and her already stained hem. They could hear the woman thrashing in the corn.

"Wait," he whispered again.

Scully could feel his heart pumping against her cheek. The maid wasn't anything they'd faced in hand-to-hand-combat. She didn't have weak points—eyes, lungs, throat—she didn't have any sort of known anatomy.

They could hear her barraging toward them, in a bee-line, like she could sense them. Scully saw, between the stalks, her solitary silhouette jerking through the moonlight with rapid angular movements, axe on the ready.

"Mulder, if we come at her on both sides—"

He grabbed her closer. "We have to keep running—she's not—we have to keep running." He glanced at the corn. "I thought—"

Behind them, the maid exploded into another fit of laughter and brought the axe down onto a stump. She growled, realizing she mistook the stump for the agents, and jerked her arms to withdraw her blade.

They had a window while she struggled.

Mulder glanced at the corn again. "It's—it's close. He said it's—"

"Mulder," Scully flew up and grabbed his hand, "Let's just go—let's put some space between us and that thing."

He hesitated, still looking around, but it was all just rows of corn whichever way they looked. He followed Scully, and behind them, they could hear the woman roaring as she struggled with the axe her own strength had lodged deep. The agents climbed through the stalks, keeping care to make as little sound as possible, and Mulder tugged Scully's skirt back every once in a while.

"Mulder," she whispered, pleading with him as he tugged her back once again, "Mulder what are you doing?"

"It's here—the motorcycle—it's here somewhere."

She froze, listening to the sound of thrashing in the distance they put between themselves and the maid. Scully stepped closer to Mulder, keeping herself from crying out as her bare sole landed on a clipped root, stinging her nerves in a short burst along her spine. "Mulder, maybe there is no motorcycle."

"No," he shook his head, "No, it's here."

"Mulder, we have to run—she's coming."

"It's here."

She glanced up and down the row—just more corn. "Mulder, there's nothing here."

Close upon them, the thrashing resumed—the maniacal giggling rippled through the air, moving toward them. The maid had gotten her weapon back.

"Mulder—"

"I can smell it. Can't you smell it, Scully? Rust."

Scully grabbed his hand, and he slipped his wrist out of her fingers, staring around.

"It's here, Scully—"

"Mulder!" She grabbed his face. "Mulder, we have to keep moving!"

"There," he pointed.

"What?"

"Right there!"

Despite her better instincts, Scully turned. She peered between the stalks, through a clump of weed and dirt, where Mulder was pointing, and a glint caught her eye: a rim of a wheel.

In the next second, the maid came right upon them—gray hair billowing, her mutated smile screeching.

The axe flew across the moonlight.

Scully pushed Mulder into the corn, glancing back, and then a streak of short blonde hair flashed across her sight. Someone lurched out of the wall of corn beside the agents. Scully's foot slipped into the mud again.

The blade sounded—thick against a mush of flesh, like a sharp knife landing in cake.

Something hard bounced up against Scully's foot and bounced off like a soccer ball.

She winced and turned back to see a hand run its fingers through loose hairs illuminated by the moonlight. Scully looked up.

A decapitated head loomed into her view against the moonlight.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Scully blinked against the rushing moonlight.

The maid's melted face dangled in front of her, no blood dripping from the severed neck.

Sue leaned in, pressing her face against the maid's ear. Sue's long lashes and soft lips—the remaining real half of her pretty features glittered in the silver light.

"That's for Charlie," she whispered to the severed head. She pronounced it Chaa-lee.

Scully dug her feet down, struggling out of the mud, her toes slipping through it. She pulled Mulder's elbow, helping him up, as they gaped at the scene. Sue stood with her full lips pressed to the ear of the maid's severed head.

"You remember me, Nina?" Sue whispered. "I'm weak-minded Susanna. I'm the one that will bury your head now."

The warped mouth on the severed head trembled. "No," the maid breathed. "Wait, please." She lisped.

"Right here," Sue insisted, smiling. "Right here in the land where no one ever sleeps or eats. You'll be awake forever, with nothing but earth in your eye."

"No," Nina cried. "No!"

Sue scowled. "No? Did Charlie plead, too? Where did you bury him?"

The agents stood, unable to look away from the scene. Sue's wide fifties' skirt rustled in the fast breeze. She held the axe limp in one hand, and in the other—she held the maid's head like it was the head of Gorgona, Medusa herself, slain. The moon washed over them, and the sky groaned in the distance, fast clouds rushing and gathering. The wind picked up.

"Mulder," Scully whispered, glancing back. She finally saw the motorcycle. It sat under a rustling tarp, against a wall of corn beyond which a pile of rusted metal could be seen and smelled through the flickering stalks.

He glanced back at the nudge, but turned back to the scene unfolding before them. Scully, herself, could barely look away. She stared at Sue.

"Where did you bury him?" The woman demanded again. Her hand in the maid's hair clenched.

"Is that what this is about?" Nina lisped, rushing. "I'll tell you—of course I will tell you. I'll tell you where Charlie is buried—every separate piece of him. I'll lead you to every piece." She lisped it— _peeth._ "I remember every location—you know that. You know that I remember."

Behind Sue, Scully caught a hint of movement. Something was crawling toward them through the darkness of the mud.

"Watch out," Mulder pointed, moving forward on instinct.

In a flash, Sue whipped about and brought the axe down, never releasing the maid's head. The blade slushed again—a sickening sound like a squish through a worm. Against the moonlight, the maid's body stood, missing an arm now, and stumbled toward Sue.

"Sit," Sue ordered the head. "Sit or this conversation is over, and in the ground you'll go—in a thousand 'peethes'." She mocked the maid's lisp.

"Okay," the maid's voice quivered. "Okay." Her headless, armless body plumped down onto the ground.

"Good," Sue barked. "Now, tell me where. Where is Charlie's head?"

"Miss Greta will be angry," the maid lisped slowly. She seemed to be stalling.

"I don't care," Sue screamed, dangling the head. "Where is he?"

"What about them?" Nina implied the agents.

Sue turned and glanced over Mulder and Scully like she had forgotten they were standing there. They stared at her, wordless.

"What are you doing?" Sue cried at them. "Run! Take Jimmy's motorcycle. You can still make it out. Go!"

Scully backed up and grabbed Mulder's sleeve. He didn't budge; he couldn't look away. Scully could barely either.

The headless body sitting on the ground reached into a pocket of its dress. The hand squeezed something and then—

"Miss Greta!" the maid hollered across the rustling stalks. "Miss Greta!"

The corn flickered. For a moment, the agents saw dead, empty terrain all around them. The sky moaned, clouds thickening. A lightning flashed in the distance, and then, the heavens opened up, unleashing a torrent of water. Then the corn came back, but the rain didn't leave. It rushed, roaring and splashing against the leaves of the corn.

A light bobbed toward them from down the row. Everyone turned, even Sue.

It was little Greta, wearing a long white nightgown. She walked toward them, carrying a frilly black umbrella in one hand, coupled with a flashlight. In the other—she held an opened book, the pages shielded from the gushing rain. Her eyes were pinned down to the text as she walked.

"Nina, you are so stupid," the little girl said absently, still reading as we walked up to them. "Did you get lost in the field again?"

She looked up and faltered, taking in the scene.

"What have you done to Nina?" she frowned at Sue. "Did you break her? Where's the rest of her?"

Sue's throat lurched as she swallowed. Her wrist weakened, trembling.

"Miss Greta," Nina hurried. "She came up at me out of nowhere. I was doing as you told—making sure Richard and Desiree were eloping in the most romantic fashion—just like in the book—"

"Stop it, you liar," Sue hissed, and faced the little girl. "I want to know where Charlie is," she demanded, in a shaking voice.

"Who?" Little Greta knotted her eyebrows, still glancing between everybody. "Miss Dana, you and your Gentleman shouldn't be out here in the rain… In the book, the rain beats on your window—the window of a country inn where you first profess your undying love for one ano—"

"Where is Charlie?" Sue screamed, cutting her off.

Greta closed her delicate lips and her eyes narrowed. She tucked the book under her arm and looked Sue up and down.

Nina giggled. "She's so rude. Melt her, Miss Gr—"

"Shut up, Nina," the little girl barked. "Who's Charlie?" she asked Sue.

"Who's Cha—" Sue's expression—the real side of her face quivered, and a tear broke and slid across her cheek, lost in the wash of rain. "Charlie," she managed. "My Charlie. You chopped him up and buried him awake in the field. He's here, somewhere—I want him back…" She hesitated, biting her lip. "Please," she whispered. "Please, Miss Greta."

"Miss Greta," the maid began.

"Shut up, Nina!" the girl said again, stepping closer to study Sue under the wash of her flashlight. "Oh—oh, I remember. Goodness, that was a while ago, wasn't it?"

Sue quaked from the cold detached tone, but held on, squaring her shoulders under the little girl's gaze. Only her hand holding the maid's head clenched harder, making Nina's mouth wince. The axe, Sue had long dropped away to the ground.

Greta looked Sue over, slowly, thinking. "A long time ago," the girl nodded. A curious light caught her blue eyes. "Your Charlie—you've thought about him all this time?"

"Yes," Sue breathed. "Every second of my life since."

"That's…" Greta tilted her head, still watching the woman. "That's so romantic… I like that."

"Miss Greta," the maid's head squealed. "Miss Greta, she attacked me—she might be out to get you—you can't fall for this!"

"Shut up, Nina," Greta said absently, still looking Sue over.

"No!" The head screamed. The headless body tumbled up and grabbed the axe that Sue had dropped. The body hurled toward Sue.

The agents backed up. It was not their instinct—their instinct was to intervene and prevent any violence at all time—but a wash came at them like the wall of an expanding bubble around the three figures in the corn. Mulder and Scully stumbled backwards into the wet, running mud.

The headless figure lunged at Sue. Sue turned back, surprised, watching. The axe flew, spraying in the rain.

Greta held up her hand and everything froze. Only the raindrops resumed the vertical direction and slipped down from the sky over everything.

"You are stupid, Nina," Greta said again.

The maid's head was frozen in a mad screech, soundless. Her body was behind Sue, the axe inches from Sue's neck. Sue was frozen, mid-turn, and the real, exquisitely pretty side of her face, shone in the rain, glistening in the beam of the flashlight.

Greta walked up and plucked the axe out of the maid's arm like it was an errand splinter. She used the butt of the handle to knock the body back into the slush, and tossed the axe out into the corn. It flew, twisting as though it was a light plastic Frisbee. Greta untangled the maid's head out of Sue's fingers, and tucked it under her arm along with her book.

She snapped her fingers and movement resumed.

Sue stumbled glancing around, and seeing her hands free, she ran them up her face, wiping off tears in the rain. Greta watched her do this.

"Miss Greta," the maid lisped under her arm, "Miss Greta—"

"Will you shut up, Nina?" Greta said without glancing down. She watched Sue. "Won't you come, Miss… Susanna, right?"

Sue nodded.

"Good. Come, Miss Susanna. I like your story very much. I think I should like to hear more. I enjoy this idea of you reuniting with your… Charlie."

Sue nodded again, and followed without a glance in the agents' direction. She did so with force. Scully could read every muscle in Sue tensing, forcing to not glance at them. The young woman didn't want to remind Greta of their presence. They walked a few steps down the row of corn. The rain slushed all about. Mulder squeezed, Scully's hand—he had been squeezing it, she realized. The gesture communicated the same thing that Sue was trying to communicate: don't move, don't breathe, don't say a word.

Scully didn't move. They were almost out of there. This was the window.

Then, ahead, Greta hesitated under her umbrella. "Oh," she said and turned. "You two—in the trunk for now, ok?"

Mulder's hand clenched, almost crushing Scully's fingers. "Wait," he said to Greta, "Maybe we could just keep going with our thing—"

Greta snapped her fingers.

Scully was watching Sue, and the last thing she saw was Sue glancing back at her with the eye that was real, and what she read in that expression was: _I'm sorry_.

The next thing she registered was Mulder's shirt—his familiar smell. Her cheek was pressed to his chest. She coughed, moving, and he clamped her closer, keeping her from seeing where she was.

"Muld—" she started to protest.

He only clenched harder, wrapping his arm across her vision and keeping her close. The air about them was thick and dank, and rancid with an odd smell. Only Mulder's chest smelled normal and familiar.

"Just stay still," he whispered. His tone alarmed her—he was scared. She could feel his sweat and panic seep into her. "Just stay still," he whispered again, refusing to let her move. "We just have to figure out another way."

Beyond the muffled closeness of his shirt and arms, Scully registered other sounds: sounds of moans and a distant voice talking without stop in senseless fragments of sentences. The place sounded like a psychiatrics wing.

Scully resisted his grip again, and again he just drew her closer, keeping her from seeing anything. She didn't want to admit it, but the smell of him was welcome—it seemed to be the only smell around that wasn't rank with decay.

Above somewhere, a door clapped, but it clapped soft, like a lid.

"Fucking cheese on a cracker," a man cursed after it shut.

Mulder shifted, without giving Scully an inch to move, pressing her close.

"Hey, gang." The man's voice sounded again. A few voices rose up in response, moans mostly. Feet sounded against steps, descending. "Well, I've got solitary again, apparently—with you fine people. She's found a new project, and now everybody's in the way."

The man's voice faltered.

Mulder's arm wrapped tighter about Scully, and she felt his other hand lift briefly, like he was waving.

"You?" The man cried. "What happened? You couldn't find the motorcycle? I gave you directions."

Mulder tensed. "We got interrupted."

"Oh," the man paused. "Is that your girl—the reason you didn't run when I told you to before?"

Scully jerked against Mulder's arm, and he clutched her closer. "I'd rather she not see where she was," he said to the man, but more to Scully.

The man chuckled—a sad, worn sound. "You better let her up, son. She's going to have to see at one point or another. At one point or another, we all have to see where we are… I'm sorry to tell you this, but if the little girl threw _me_ in the trunk, it means we're in for a long haul. She's on a new project. Let's just hope she didn't get her hands on more books."

"Mulder," Scully lurched against his chest. "Let me up."

He didn't want to, but he slid his arms off, slowly.

Scully sat up into the rank atmosphere, the back of her mind regretting leaving the only smell in the room that was alive and good—Mulder's chest. They were under a hanging light bulb. In the immediate spotlight, she saw the squat figure of the man she had seen chopping wood at the side of the house. All around them, in the shadow—bodies. Melted bodies clustered together, groaning. Some reached their hands out to her, wanting her to help them. Others stayed still, letting people climb over their semi-appendaged selves, their sparsely readable expressions blank and staring into nothing. There were so many. There were no windows in the space.

Scully clasped her hands to her face, feeling sheer panic. Mulder grabbed her, and she pulled her arm out of his fingers. "What is this?" she cried at the bodies. "How is this happening to you?" She felt her heart pounding, thrashing through her chest, pumping in her ears. "How is this happening?"

"Scully," Mulder tried to pull her back again.

"No—what is this? What is happening? These people need medical attention. What's happening?"

There wasn't enough air in the dank small space.

The man in the spotlight of the hanging light bulb moved closer. Sweat drenched his white undershirt exactly as she had seen it when he chopped wood. He studied her out of one good eye.

"Easy, easy, darling," he said quietly. "You're feeling the heat of the blade now—the speed of the bullet. You need to stay smart, you understand that, right? Keep your wits about you."

Scully struggled, heaving, her hand slipping along Mulder's arm, as he urged back to his chest. "Jimmy, right?" she demanded of the man. "Jimmy—you fix cars. It was your motorcycle. You were the one I saw chopping wood. Jimmy."

The man nodded, a tug of an appreciative smile pulling on his lips between the stubble that showed through the melted flesh. "That'd be me, mam. I like to keep myself occupied."

Scully bit her lip, trying her best to stay present as her mind urged her that she was going mad. "Jimmy," she said, "What did you mean when you said that if she threw _you_ in here, it meant we were in for a long haul?"

The man blinked and scratched his chest, looking her over. " _Me_ , mam. I'm not like the rest. I was here when little Greta's great-grandmother was alive. I worked the property."

The agents sat up, Scully struggling against her shortening breath, willing herself to keep from gagging on the nauseating air of the room.

"You never told me that," Mulder said.

"You never asked," the man shrugged.

"What happened?" Scully asked. "Who is this girl?"

"Who?" the man chuckled. "I can tell you the backstory, but the 'who' is a long time ago. It was…oh, let's see," he scratched his chest again, looking out into the wash of shadows where bodies lay groaning. "Nineteen O-five it was—"


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"Yup," Jimmy nodded to himself, "Nineteen O-Five… Heck of a long time ago. That is, of course, if you are the kind of people that give time weight and measure, which I suggest you don't do too much anymore… not in this house." He glanced at the agents.

Scully and Mulder stared at him, hanging onto every word. The light bulb above dangled, throwing shadows over the man's half-face.

He cleared his throat. "Right… Little Greta. Well, it was in Nineteen O-Five when I was last alive by the common definition. I like to think of that time as my pre-life… a childhood, if you like. I have to," he shrugged. "In this house, you have to do what you have to do to keep from losing your mind." Around them, a few figures groaned—a heart-breaking sound of desperation. "Else, you end up like them," Jimmy pointed to the sound. "And that's no end; it's just a more painful sentence. There is no end in this house, to anything—not to life, not to time…"

Someone, a man, burst into tears in the far dark corner.

"Well," Jimmy scratched his chest and settled back against a wooden load-bearing beam. "Seeing as how we're not going anywhere, I'll tell you the story—all the details…

"Nineteen O-Five was a time without so many cars. I'd seen an automobile before, at the county fair, but heck if I knew a thing about how it moved. I was working farms then, moving town to town—lending a hand when something heavy needed done: a barn built, bales of hay moved, wood chopped… I did it all for a pint of whiskey, I won't lie. That was the life I chose, and the road I walked. I was a Christian man—Catholic, and I knew all about sin. Funny," Jimmy chuckled, "how God teaches us our lessons, isn't it?"

His eye darted to the cross around Scully's neck. "A pint of whiskey…" he mused. "That'd be a joke to me now—useless as a slice of warm apple pie. Anyhow… I ambled about, mostly through these parts. Work was hard to come by some weeks, and other weeks it was day-break to day's end. I fished for those days, and tried to save up my pay, but I usually drank through it all in a night.

"Well, these parts here—this was all corn country back then. Probably still is, out there, past the dead stretch. Corn don't grow here—don't pay attention to the picture she puts up. Well, every time the season came to reap what you sow, I was, as you'd say it: booked solid, and I worked as many farms as I could.

"I came to Mrs. Ivanova's house on a tip. That'd be the little girl's great-grandmother," he clarified for the agents, and leaned back again, scratching his chest as he reminisced. "Some of the other guys, they told me she was an old lady: daughter dead, granddaughter living out in some big city somewhere—can't remember where… They said she needed simple things done around the house, being an old lady and all, and that she paid well—over-paid. They said she was some kind of Bulgarian Gypsy royalty, back in her home-country, and she was now just living out her sunset years in our great 'Tis of Thee.'

"So, I come to her. The house surprised me: just a plain, ordinary house, poorer that most around, I'd say. I was starting to think the guys were putting me on, like a joke—keeping me away from the better gig at the farm that was cropping down the road. Then she comes out onto the porch—very polite, nice old lady. She asks me to chop up some logs for her. Winter was well away still, but she said she liked to think ahead." Jimmy shrugged, like he was facing the situation at that very moment. "So, I think to myself—what's the harm? Even if the lady paid me a half-penny, it would still be the Christian thing to do—helping an old woman…

"So, I get to chopping. I cleaned up her whole log pile, stalked the chops in the shed, put a tarp over it for good measure. I come back up to the porch to let her know the job's done. She's standing there, watching me—a curious kind of look in her eye. She says to me, 'Do you have to look for work often?' I told her it comes and goes. Mrs. Ivanova—she pays me, right there, five times the money a generous household would've paid for that chore. And she asks me if I'd like to work for her full-time." Jimmy inhaled slow, as if remembering that moment was like remembering a fork in the road.

Mulder and Scully stayed still, listening. Even the groaning bodies around them seemed to have quieted under Jimmy's story.

"Not a month later," Jimmy went on, "I was practically living on the property. Nothing inappropriate," he glanced at the agents. "Respect for a lady, no matter what age, was a big deal back then. I camped out in the tool shack when the day got too late, or the weather too bad, for me to walk it back to my room at the boarding house in town. I did all the outdoor chores: took care of the horses, her carriage, general household maintenance…" He chuckled. "Mrs. Ivanova sure did act like she was royalty—not like a farmland woman at all. She even walked like belonged to some high society somewhere…

"So, little Greta." Jimmy cleared his throat. "I first saw her when she ran out to play in the yard. The fall was closing in, leaves flying everywhere. There used to be an orchard back there, you know… before all the trees got chopped down. The little girl—she looked like an angel: pretty little pink skirt, and a little jacket to keep away from the chill. Mrs. Ivanova came out and sat down on the chopping stump. She kept watch over the girl like a hawk. I was busy weeding, and I just kept my eyes to my work, so as not to bother them. The pay was too good, you understand.

"It struck me curious, though, that there was a child on the property, and next time I was in town—at the bar on my day off—I asked the locals about the girl. They told me she was Mrs. Ivanova's great-granddaughter, and that the gossip speculated she was an illegitimate kid. The mother, they said, was up in some fast city, partying her way through high-end men, men of money, trying to secure an engagement. She hadn't come to visit the girl since she'd dropped her off as a babe on Mrs. Ivanova's porch."

The silence around them was almost palpable now. Everyone was listening. Even the crying man in the corner fell short of a sob. Mulder and Scully held still as ever. The light bulb twirled above Jimmy's head as he picked up speed to his story.

"Well, it all went down that fall, when the mother showed up with her new fiancé. I was fixing a rung on the porch when I saw them walk up the road to the house. The first time I laid eyes on the man—well… sometimes, you just hate a man, you know? It's like an instinct—some old ingrained scientific formula of biological excretions, or something I can't even claim to understand, but I know it from experience—he was a bad man. He walked up, cocky… glistening in the sun like turd that doesn't care it's a turd because it can pay people to say otherwise. Fat man—he had a big ol' belly on him, and a big ol' twirly moustache with mousse all up in it. The woman—the mother—she just looked weak to me, weak and tired.

"They walked past me and up into the house. I meant to leave, but the job was giving me problems, and I couldn't finish it as quickly as I ought have. My hands and my mind were just not right that day—I don't know. Well, next thing I heard was an argument exploding in the sitting room… windows were down. The fiancé had walked out into the orchard to puff on a cigar, and the argument was just between Mrs. Ivanova and the mother of the girl."

Jimmy scratched his chest and sighed. "In hindsight, they say… in hindsight, you put it all together. Hindsight comes with time. Time is all I've had since that fall in Nineteen O-Five. I told you I'd but seen an automobile once in my life before here. I'm a mechanic now. Sure, I've read the two books Miss Greta has on the subject, but it was the time that really taught me. If you stare at a broken engine for hours, days, finagling with it, trying to make sense of its layout in your head—if you have the time, and you need to keep occupied to keep yourself from going mad, you'll be an expert mechanic, too."

Jimmy fell quiet, rubbing his eyes. Scully swallowed, trying to find moisture under her tongue to speak.

"What was the argument about?" she asked.

"Hm?" he frowned, sitting up. "Right. Little Greta… At the time, I won't lie, I thought Mrs. Ivanova was losing her marbles. I tried to keep my eyes to my work, and my ears to the buzz of the bees—nose to the ground, as they say. But, I heard every screaming word that passed between them. The mother wanted to take little Greta back with her. She said the fiancé—can't remember the wretch's name—wanted a family, no matter its history. And, Mrs. Ivanova yelled like she was getting sliced across the throat. Mrs. Ivanova said the man was bad—she didn't trust him. She said the mother had no right, and then the argument got… philosophical. Guilt over everything," Jimmy rubbed his head. "Who had the right to the girl—that sort of thing."

Jimmy glanced at the agents. "I couldn't handle it—the screaming. Everything about the job so far had been peaches for me. I'd never heard Mrs. Ivanova's voice rise an octave. My hand was not hitting anything on the spot that day, so I just dropped my tools and circled the house. I walked around to clear my head, to get away from the noise, and then I saw him."

Jimmy swallowed.

"I told you—sometimes you just know. I knew it in my core. Mrs. Ivanova must have known, too… I walked around and saw the fiancé sitting by little Greta, out by the orchard in the backyard. The man—he had his cigar clipped, and he was talking to her. The girl was sitting right by him, holding a little bunch of daisies she'd plucked while running around. She sat up on the bench, holding the flowers. The man—I saw him as I came around the corner—he ran his hand across her cheek." Jimmy coughed, pounding his chest. "It was wrong. His fat greased fingers touched her lips—the little child's lips."

Jimmy grabbed his head and fell silent.

Mulder and Scully inched closer. "What then?" Scully asked.

"Then?" Jimmy arched back, his head clunking against the pole. "Mrs. Ivanova ran out of nowhere, grabbed the kid, and swore like a sailor at the mother. The mother came out, too, angry… She threatened things—law-abiding documents. The man—he only held still, like a rat caught with cheese." Jimmy said, rubbing sweat off his forehead. "Mrs. Ivanova said four words: _Over my dead body._

"And then…" Jimmy sighed, leaning against the pole. "Then it was—something else." He blinked and arched up against the wooden beam. "I killed a man," he said in a flat voice. "I can tell you that because God already knows—I killed the fiancé. Like a household chore," he laughed, rubbing his sweating face. "Like it was a nuisance. He was not a man like anyone else here. I killed him dead… I took time. I… ground him up into meat and put the meat into the septic tank to flow out into the ocean… He was a bad man."

Scully felt nausea bubbling up, but she pushed it back. "What about the mother?" she asked.

Jimmy blinked under the short light of the bulb. "She ran," he shrugged. "Probably dead by now. It was a long time ago. All I remember is Mrs. Ivanova telling little Greta she can stay as long as she likes—play as long as she likes… Mrs. Ivanova keeled over and died next day, right in her bed. The kid never got another parent. Greta stayed the same. She—"

A door slapped open above them and the agents squinted against the bulb light to see little Greta at the top of the stairwell, pink dress intact as always.

"What's a Skinner?" she demanded, zeroing in on Scully.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

The agents tensed, staring at the little girl. Greta waited for an impatient moment.

"Well?" she demanded.

"What?" Mulder asked the girl, inching toward the stairs.

"There's a Skinner in my house, tearing the place up," Greta said, her voice shrill. "I guess he found your pistols, and now a bunch of people are all over the place—I'm busy. And they—" Greta's lip quivered. "They're not getting spooked. Nothing's working."

Greta fixed Mulder with her blue eyes as he stood. Her little hand lifted—a cautionary gesture, ready to still him if he moved toward her.

"Skinner," he said slowly. "He's uh…" He was stalling, Scully realized—thinking. "He's our boss. We can get rid of him for you."

Greta narrowed her eyes, looking him up and down, suspicious.

In the shadows behind Scully, someone nudged her. She glanced back, and a half-melted woman shook her head and pointed at the girl. Scully faced ahead. In the spotlight, Jimmy was watching the woman and he gave a small nod. He moved his fingers next to his thigh. Sign language, Scully realized—a miniaturized version designed to keep the code hidden from sight. He was communicating something to the woman.

The woman leaned close to Scully's ear, whispering low and fast. "Jimmy says find the cabinet with the dolls. You can see it when other people are in the house." Her rank breath washed over Scully, but she held still, afraid to miss a word. "There are two dolls in there—dolls of you. Make sure the man looking for you puts them in his car. You'll get out that way."

Greta edged sideways and peered over Mulder's shoulder. "Miss Dana, what are you doing?"

The woman slunk back into the shadows. Scully stood.

"Skinner's our boss," she nodded.

"I don't trust him," Greta pointed at Mulder. "Will you come up and tell them all to leave?"

How? Skinner wouldn't be able to see her. "Yes," Scully nodded. Anything to get upstairs for now. "Yes, sure."

She walked past Mulder, and squeezed his hand quickly as she brushed past him. Jimmy would fill him in on the plan. Scully needed to find that doll cabinet. She remembered it well: the broken armoire the teenagers shone their lighter on.

Greta waited as Scully walked upstairs and out of the door into—the basement. She frowned and turned around. Behind her, the little girl stepped out of a door way, and then the doorway vanished.

"See," the girl pointed, her tone edgy and upset.

Two figures moved through the basement, shining flashlights over everything slowly. Scully recognized the FBI jackets.

"They just won't leave," Greta whined. "Make them leave, Miss Dana. I'm busy—I'm sewing, and I need quiet to focus."

Neither of the figures turned to the sound of her voice.

"I…" Scully thought fast. "I have to see Skinner. He's the boss—he's the one that can order them to go."

"He's upstairs," Greta said. "I don't like him. He didn't even blink when I did the flying ghost." Scully followed the girl up out of the basement. "Is he a skeptic?" The girl said the word like it was a term for a mental disability.

The question struck Scully funny—a reminder of her and Mulder's constant debate. "Yes, I think. I am, too, though."

Greta shook her little dark haired head. "Then he must not have any imagination, because all the kids see the flying ghost."

Upstairs, Scully saw more men and women. She recognized some of them. Most were new recruits—kidnapping squad. They didn't see Scully or the girl; they searched the house, turning everything up on its end, checking every corner, every crevice. They were chatting, speculating, but mostly they just looked bored. Skinner had to have called in a favor with the Bureau to get so many agents.

The walls flickered with the duality Scully saw when the teenagers had snuck in. Only now, there was light seeping in through the dusty windows of the abandoned farmhouse—it was day outside, in the real world.

Skinner plopped down the rickety fleeced carpet steps of the stairwell.

"There he is," Greta pointed. "I have to get back to sewing. Make him go away."

The girl turned and disappeared down the hallway.

Scully stared at Skinner, feeling impotent. He looked right through her.

"Anything?" He demanded of the man behind her.

Scully backed up. It was unnerving to be spoken through.

The man Skinner addressed was squatting over the floor boards. He stood and shrugged. "Nothing, sir. We've gone through every inch."

"There has to be something. Their weapons were found on the property."

A woman stood up, rubbing her back. "Neither of them fired, sir."

Skinner glanced at her over the sparkle of his glasses. "So?"

She cleared her throat. "Sir, we've been here for three hours. With all due respect, it is just far more likely that Agent Mulder and Agent Scully walked to town."

He shook his head. "It's been a week since they left Akron. If they were in any way able, they would have immediately placed a call."

The man chuckled. "Maybe they eloped," he muttered.

Skinner scowled and stepped closer. "If this is in some way funny to you, Agent Wagner—"

"No, I," the young man stiffened, clearing his throat. "I apologize, sir. I was out of line…"

Scully studied the walls. They were in the living room, from what she could read through their flickering surroundings. The teenagers had found the doll cabinet after only a few steps into the house. It had to be in the front hall. She walked past Skinner, studying the walls. It hurt her eyes when she stared too much at the flicker: pain shot through, pumping a headache.

She bit her lip, blinking, fighting the throb in her head. Skinner walked past her out to the front door. His arm brushed her shoulder, and she cried out: the touch was painful—a sharp shooting sting. Skinner only hesitated and shrugged.

He did feel something, Scully noted. Like the police officer who'd felt a chill, Skinner felt something at her touch. She turned to the wall and saw the armoire with the dolls, flickering between flashes of ornate plaster wall. She couldn't keep her eyes on it long enough to decipher which dolls Jimmy meant her to find—the headache was too strong—but she didn't need to, she decided. Skinner needed to see them. She reached out and grabbed his arm back as he walked away.

"Argh!" she screamed. The pain was insane—shooting up her arm like an IV of lava, spreading to her very toes.

Skinner paused and looked back again. He glanced around, wriggling his shoulders almost involuntarily, and turned to the door. Scully grit her teeth, her body begging her not do it, and grabbed his arm again.

"Damn it!" She yelled, rubbing her hand. She stumbled, groaning from the pain.

Skinner paused again. "That's odd," he mumbled to himself, and then his eyes fell on the doll display. "What is this?" he asked the nearest agent.

"Hm?" The woman turned. "A creepy collection, if you ask me—they're all melted. Whatever value they might have had is gone."

Skinner rubbed the arm where Scully had touched him. "Did you move the armoire to check behind?"

"Yup," the agent nodded. "Just more wall…"

Skinner hesitated, reluctant it seemed to walk away. He shrugged then and turned back toward the front door. Scully struggled up, suppressing a whimper as she readied to pull him back again.

"Except these ones," the agent said.

"What?" Skinner turned with Scully inches from him.

"These ones," the woman pointed into the corner of the armoire that flickered in Scully's vision. "These ones don't have melted faces."

Skinner frowned and leaned in. From behind the mass of dolls he extracted two—a Barbie and Ken. Scully glanced at them through the sparks shooting in her eyes. Ken was wearing a dress shirt and dark slacks. Barbie had on a blouse and a charcoal skirt over nylons…

Barbie's hair was cropped short and shone like bright copper.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Skinner turned the dolls over in his hands, an odd expression coming over his face.

Scully stared at him, willing him to see the connection. The resemblance alone—the pure coincidence—had to strike him significant. Skinner noticed the other agent's eyes on him, and cleared his throat. The resemblance was significant, but also an embarrassing theory to propose—the kind of theory Spooky Mulder would have voiced in an instant, but not the kind of theory that should've even flashed across the mind of an assistant director.

Scully bit her lip, begging, urging him not to put the dolls back. She needed him to take them with him, even if she had to endure the pain of grabbing his arm again. Skinner hesitated and then moved back toward the armoire. Scully grit her teeth, ready to grab him back. Then—

"Don't you think those dolls look like the agents?" The woman said, quietly so that no one around heard her but Skinner.

He paused and glanced at her, dolls still in his hand.

She was a young woman—new, and she tucked a loose hair back against her short, tight pony tail in a nervous gesture. "Agent Mulder and Agent Scully—they head the X-files, right?"

"Yes," Skinner said. He glanced at the task force still bustling about beyond the front hall. The X-Files were somewhat of a tired joke within the FBI, and Skinner didn't seem in the mood to endure a cheap shot at a laugh.

The woman cleared her throat. "I read all about X-Files division, when I first joined. Just curiosity about the rumors, sir," she said quickly when Skinner fixed her with the glitter of his glasses. "It's not the sort of department, I'd feel fit for. But, um…" She glanced around and stepped closer to him to keep their conversation private. "I'm from here, sir—Ohio. I was born in Akron, and lived out my entire childhood right in this state."

Skinner looked her over. "Agent… Tukalo, right? What are you trying to say exactly?"

His tone wasn't harsh; if anything, it was careful and gaging. Scully glanced between the two of them. The dolls of her and Mulder were still in the assistant director's hand. The woman didn't seem to want him to put the dolls back either, but was embarrassed to explain why.

Tukalo glanced back again, making a decision, and then she said, "Sir, you might think me daft for what I'm about to say, and I'd understand completely if you do, but… Growing up, the kids had a rumor about the Dead Stretch in Mahoning County. They said ghosts live in the abandoned farm house—souls of people who got lost in Ohio. All the ghost stories were different—they varied county to county, but one consistent thing that I remember, because it gave me nightmares as a little girl," she confessed, "was that the souls were trapped in dolls."

Skinner let out a gruff sigh, and rubbed his head. Scully's heart sank—he couldn't take action on an urban legend: he had no way of explaining that to the Bureau, no way that could be wrapped in any layer of logic or practically.

Then, like the voice Scully had when she first joined Mulder's quest, Tukalo spoke with pure, calculative reason. "Sir, if the rumor had been so popular as to reach Akron, it is possible that the agents' kidnapper was reenacting the ghost-story. This," she pointed to the dolls, "would then be evidence."

The young woman bit her lip, and stood back, lowering her arms and crossing them behind her in all show of militant compliance to the law of due process. Skinner glanced her over again.

"That's even only if a copy-cat—copy-rumor assailant is who we're looking for," he said.

"It's just a possible direction," Tukalo insisted. "We've turned the place upside down, and the only sign of the agents we've found, apart from their weapons, are these dolls that resemble them, and also have almost no dust covering them, unlike the rest of the collection."

Scully looked over the Barbie issue set in Skinner's hand. This was true: the dolls were clearly new, placed recently. He had to take that into account.

"Sir," Tukalo went on, "if you prefer, I will sign off on that I personally asked you to take the dolls as evidence." She glanced back at the other agents again. The bunch that had been upstairs were descending the stairwell now, grumbling. "You know," she said quickly, "be the brunt of the joke."

Skinner considered it.

One more time, Scully decided, and bit her lip as she reached out and brushed the wrist of the hand in which he held the dolls. She took her time, crying out all the same from the pain of physical contact in the duality.

Skinner jerked his hand back—from an empty space, like a spasm—and stretched the dolls toward Tukalo.

"Evidence bag," he said. "Leave them in the back of my car."

The joy of victory that shot through Scully faltered as she saw Tukalo grab the dolls and slip them into zip-lined plastic. What would that entail? Would she and Mulder reappear in a bag—in Skinner's trunk? Nothing made sense about the place already, and she was growing ever more paranoid of the rules the house obeyed.

"That's a wrap," Skinner hollered out across the house. "Dismissed. Back to base."

An audible sigh of relief swept the house, and the agents cluttered out of the front door. Scully scrunched up against the wall, wincing when a sleeve or a hand ran along her in the hustle, shooting pain into her. She tried to keep her eyes on Tukalo. The young woman's tight pony-tail glittered in the sunlight of the opened doorway ahead.

"What you got there, Tooks?" A young man, several people behind her, called out.

"A hunch in a bag," she yelled without turning around.

When the agents had filed out, only Skinner and Scully were left in the hall—in the duality that kept him from seeing her. Skinner glanced over the walls, rubbing the arm where she had tried to grab him. A small frown creased his brow between the glasses, and then he shrugged and walked out, after his swat team.

Scully followed, cringing as her toes sliced against the hot rocks of the driveway. She watched them all pile into two vans, and Skinner beep his car unlocked from a distance. He stared after the vans as they peeled away, and then he popped the hood of his trunk.

He opened the lid and frowned. Scully stepped up beside him to look. It was empty. Skinner rushed forward, to call back, without a doubt, the vehicles rushing off, but he faltered beside the backseat window.

Tukalo had left the dolls in the backseat: no evidence bag—sitting in the backseat like they were people.

Skinner stared at them for a long moment. Then he chuckled, and climbed behind the wheel. Scully watched him speed away down the road. The breeze caught her cheek. Forty-five minutes, she thought: forty-five minutes until he reached the stop sign.

"Finally," Greta slapped open the farmhouse door, and stepped out onto the porch. Her little face was a moon in a flurry of dark, rustled curls. She focused on Scully with wide eyes, blue even in the shadow of the porch's overhang. "Miss Dana, will you come back in, please? Miss Susanna is crying, and I don't know why."


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Scully walked up the porch, past the wind chimes and old flowers pots, and followed little Greta into the lavish foyer that opened up once again.

Just a little more time, she said to herself. If Jimmy's plan proved true, they would be out of there as soon as Skinner crossed the stop-sign.

Greta's pink silk dress swished ahead as she led Scully down the hall and into the dining room where the small intimate table Scully had seen on her first morning in the house was now replaced by a long, heavy, square desk.

She hesitated, taking in the scene.

Sue stood by the tabletop, sobbing without pause, tears gushing from the real, pretty side of her face. The sunlight through the large windows pressing against the corn edged her short blonde curls. Scully stepped closer.

On the desk, lay a man—sewn back together.

Scully swallowed, tensing, willing her stomach not to lurch.

He was a young man—a very handsome man—though covered in dirt. His features were symmetrical, graceful, and completely un-melted. The damage done to him was indicated by the lines of thick black stitching across his neck, around his arms, and across his thighs; he had been pulled apart and sewn back together. And he breathed… slowly, staring at the ceiling with wide brown eyes that darted frantically back and forth, looking into some distance created by his own tortured mind.

Sue clutched one of his hands to her cheek, and her tears ran along it down his arm, cutting rivets of pale flesh in the coat of dirt.

"See," Greta pointed. "I put Charlie back together, and now they're not talking, or doing anything." She stomped her foot. "I thought they would act out a story, but they're just... sitting there."

"It was a pointless effort, if you ask me," a familiar lisping voice came from the corner. Scully flinched and turned to see Nina's head sitting on a chair in the shadows. "He's out of his mind—look at him. His brain has snapped."

"Shut up, Nina," Greta said, almost out of habit, but stepped closer to study Charlie's face. His eyes darted, the pupils large. It crushed Scully's heart to admit it, but the maid was right: he had clearly endured too much, left buried alive for so long. No psyche was strong enough to withstand such an ordeal.

Sue shook with another sobbing spasm, and clutched his hand harder.

"Miss Dana," Greta turned. "Make them do something else. I want them to play." Her bell voice rang like a whine and an order all at once.

Scully's eyes watered at the tragic scene before her. She looked away from Sue and down at the little girl.

"Greta," she said slowly, squatting in front of the small figure so that their eyes were on the same level. "Greta, these are people. Don't you understand that? These are human beings."

The little girl frowned, scowling. Her small angelic face didn't match the malicious cruelty that she'd unleashed on the world around her—a bizarre sight: a child. Scully looked between her large blue eyes, searching for any spark of empathy.

"Greta, they're not dolls. Don't you understand? Look at them." Greta glanced at the pair by the window. "Can't you see, Greta? Their hearts, their lives—are broken."

"Stop it," the girl yelled, backing away. "Stop saying things!"

In the corner, Nina's head let out an excited giggle.

"That's not fair," Greta screamed at Scully. "You're not being fair! You are awful! I thought you were my friend!"

"Greta—" Scully reached out.

"No, shut up! Don't speak!" The little girl hesitated, panting, her little lips shaking. "I did a good thing—a pretty thing. I put Charlie back together. It took me a long time, and it was so very difficult, and I'm very tired, and all I wanted was to see Miss Susanna and Charlie have a big romantic scene, like in the books."

"Greta, this is real—"

"Shut. Up." The little girl's hands started trembling. A spasm rippled through her, snapping her head back. When she faced Scully again, Greta's eyes washed over with a crimson film.

Nina giggled again—a hysterical sound.

"I did a pretty thing," Greta said, her voice suddenly low, and magnified, "but if you can't see that, maybe I should show you what an ugly thing looks like—show you what heartbreak really looks like."

She raised her hand and snapped her fingers.

Out of nowhere, out of one of the walls it seemed, Mulder tumbled into the room.

"No—" Scully jumped up, and found she couldn't move again.

At the table, Sue froze, too. She had let go of Charlie's hand and moved toward Greta, but now she stood mid-step, her hazel eye wide, blaring a message of warning.

Mulder gaped at them, trying to put together what he was seeing exactly, and then his eyes fell on the girl.

"I'll show you an ugly thing, Miss Dana," Greta moved toward him. "You like your… partner very much, don't you?"

Scully jerked all of her muscles, trying to move, trying to scream at least, but it was no use.

"Do you like his face?" Greta stepped closer. "Get a good last look, then."

Mulder stared at her as she approached him, frowning. It was an odd situation: a tiny seven-year-old threatening a full-grown man.

Out of the folds of her pink dress, Greta drew out the large knife—the same knife as before, only now it glowed like it had been held in a burning furnace.

"Whoa, easy th—" Mulder began, but then his mouth snapped shut, his hands frozen mid-reach.

Greta rose up into the air, and brought the knife closer to Mulder's face.

"You know what's especially heartbreaking?" she said to Scully without turning around. "He's going to feel the pain. He'll feel everything."

Scully hollered, and her voice came out a faint whimper.

Greta brought the knife closer to his cheek, the flat blade glowing. It was a hair away from his skin, when—

Mulder disappeared and reappeared—the image of him. His body flickered like a malfunctioning hologram.

"What?" Greta pulled back.

She whipped about at stared at Scully. Scully's arm, frozen in front of her as she reached toward Mulder, flickered, too: gone and then there again.

"What's happening?" Greta demanded.

"Miss Greta," Nina lisped in the corner. "The dolls—"

The dining room around them flashed—gone and then there, and then—

Gone.

* * *

The scream that had been surging through Scully released, and she hollered like a slain animal.

Just ahead of her, Skinner cursed and slammed on the brake.

"What the h—" He whipped around and gaped at her. "Agents! What? How did you—"

Scully turned and saw Mulder right beside her in the car.

"Scu—" he began and gasped, clutching his stomach.

She felt it, too—the surge of hunger and thirst, far worse than the one that had come over her when she'd first left the dead stretch.

"Hospital," she managed to Skinner. "Hospital, now. Dehydrated. Need fluids, electrolytes…"

The sparks across her vision burned up into a blackness that closed in over her. She fainted alongside Mulder, her hand on his.

* * *

She woke to the touch of a pillow, and her heart leapt into her throat in pure panic.

"No!" she cried, sitting up, and faltered.

She wasn't in the lavish bedroom; she was in a medical ward, on a hospital bed—a white bed with clean sheets and pillows that smelled of disinfectant. A nurse leaned in around a pulled curtain.

"Ms. Scully? It's ok. You're alright. Everything is just fine."

"Muld—my partner?"

"He's doing just fine." The nurse smiled. "He's stable, and resting. You should be, too."

The nurse walked away. Hospital noise surrounded Scully—medical equipment beeping, and doctors paged over the intercom with brisk urgency.

Scully relented back onto the pillows. She knew she needed to rest—let her body heal from the ordeal it had been put through, but she was terrified to close her eyes.

She was afraid that she would open them in the Dollhouse. She was afraid she'd find their escape had been a pleasant dream, and that their nightmare was just beginning…

* * *

 **The End**

* * *

 **Epilogue**

It was a week later, back in DC, when Scully walked into their basement office at nine o'clock on a sunny Wednesday morning, that she found Mulder staring at a tabloid scrap, a pensive frown on his face.

The report of their encounter with little Greta had perplexed AD Skinner to the point where the man simply dismissed the case. There was nothing they could do. The trick of the grand house, and the wretched souls it trapped within, was such that it could only be found by someone who was lost. Anyone who drove out to the Dead Road, knowing that it was there, only found a barren stretch of land and an old farmhouse looking like it was due to collapse into a heap any day now. Scully and Mulder's witness account could not be verified by any means the FBI had to offer; it could only remain what it was: another ghost story.

Mulder fixed on the article in his hand, scratching his cheek.

"What is it?" she sighed, pouring herself a cup of coffee. "Bigfoot, again?"

"No," he said. "Spontaneous combustion."

Scully shrugged and settled across the desk from him. "You have a whole file on that—what's so special about this article?"

He looked up and studied her face over the paper. A curious glint caught his eyes when they ran over her lips, and she glanced away, feeling a flush. They'd kept their little moment in the gazebo out of their report, and neither had brought it up in personal conversation either.

"Take a look," Mulder said, and slid the article toward Scully.

It was a cheap tabloid—one of those hokey black-and-white publications that ran stories on every bit of nonsense from the moon-landing conspiracy to sewage alligators.

The specific article that had caught Mulder's eye, was headed: _Gone on Breeze. Another instance of Spontaneous Combustion._

"Look familiar?" He pointed at the photograph displaying a motorcycle crashed into a tree. The rim on the wheel—she had definitely seen that rim before… in a cornfield.

Scully skimmed the article. It stated that a motorcycle had flown into a cross-section, out of a road in Mahoning County, Ohio, that the locals referred to as the 'Dead Stretch.' A gang of teenagers, whose vehicle had almost struck the errand bike, claimed that they saw it driven by a couple—a young man and woman who looked like Elvis and Marilyn Monroe impersonators. The couple, the teenagers insisted, vanished on the breeze, in a puff of ash.

Scully looked up at Mulder.

He gave her a sad smile.

* * *

And it was three weeks from that day, when, back in Ohio, a pharmaceutical sales rep was driving home to New York from a conference with a coworker with whom she had been secretly having an affair.

They were fooling around behind the wheel. She nibbled his ear, giggling, and he could barely pay attention to the road. They blew past a stop sign where they should have turned left, and didn't notice.

"You want me to pull over, Chrissy?" he asked, his voice thick with lust.

Chrissy glanced around and frowned. The road was swallowed on either side with thick cornfields that rustled in the clear moonlight.

"Wait, Jake—where are we?"

"Hm?" He looked around for the first time. "Struthers."

"No," she shook her head. "This isn't Struthers. We would have hit the town center by now—I memorized the route. We must have missed a turn. Let's backtrack."

"What? No," he shook his head. "Let's just keep going. Some other town will open up. How many cornfields can there be?"

Chrissy sighed. "Alright…"

"Do you want to pull over first?" he insisted, pinching her playfully. "Hop in the backseat for a quick minute?"

"No, Jake," she jerked her arm back. "I'm not in the mood anymore. I don't like this field—it's… creepy. Why aren't there any lights? We should be able to see a farm, or—something."

The car jerked, huffing.

"What now?" she turned, irritated.

"How would I know?" Jake leaned on the accelerator, his own voice starting to catch an edge. "Why do you always bitch at me?"

The car let out a shrill squeal, gurgled, and rolled to a halt in the middle of the road.

"Great!" Chrissy cried, voice dripping with annoyance. She jumped out of the car and kicked the door.

Jake rubbed his face, and climbed out to pop the hood.

"You should have backtracked," she said. "You never listen to me. Now we're out in the middle of nowhere, miles from town probably."

"Will you close your mouth for one minute, so I can focus on the engine, Chr—"

"Did your car break?" A small voice chimed behind them like a bell.

Chrissy and Jake whirled around to see a little girl that had no business being out in the middle of a country road.

She brushed down her pink dress and stepped closer, studying the pair.

A smile stretched across her delicate lips. "Oh, lovely," she said, and snapped her fingers.

* * *

 _Thank you for reading—and, yes: do be careful driving through Ohio, because I hear little Greta is still out there, waiting for someone to get lost on her stretch of road._

 _As for Scully and Mulder—well, they soon found themselves in another fantastic conundrum, but that, of course, is another story…_


End file.
